


Doing the Honors

by birdroid



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Family, Family Drama, Gen, Non-Chronological, Plot, Post-Canon, Time Skips, Translation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2020-05-14 02:57:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19264549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdroid/pseuds/birdroid
Summary: «In a world where elves fight hard and dirty to bring their elven glory back, being an unwanted knife-ear orphan is not a joke. But it's not getting easier when it turns out you're not as much of an orphan as you thought you were. Lady Lavellan is clutching onto her throne at your expense, Solas is plotting his shady schemes that include you in more ways than you would've liked, and all you ever really wanted was a neat bed, three meals a day, and a good education. And maybe, just maybe, some people you could call family too.»Year 9:57. Inquisition was not disbanded. Ellana Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford and Solas/Original Character as secondary pairings. Beware, lots of headcanons regarding elvhen here.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Both written and translated by me.   
>  TWITTER: [@birdroid](https://twitter.com/birdroid_)   
>  KO-FI: [birdroid](https://ko-fi.com/X8X81688E)

The vomit spills down in portions, making each time a slushing sound like a pot of soup being turned over again and again.

"Lyna, quit gawking around!" wrinkled Sister Regine hisses at me, pushing hard towards this reeking, growing slop.

I cling to the broom, its brush sparse and thin, the first thing I've managed to snatch before I was hurried up to the hall of Skyhold keep, as the contents of the aristocratic stomach keep spewing out right in front of its master's elegant tailored atlas shoes.

The turned over pot apparently has no bottom.

The bent over count continues throwing up portion after portion of undigested food, his secretary all fidgety by his side. The secretary, unable to stand still, turns about every other second like a hen with its tail on fire.

"The count has been poisoned!" he screams, his voice a ringing squeak. He wipes his temples running with sweat with a vibrant yellow and red handkerchief. "Inside the Inquisition walls! Unacceptable!"

Most guests have dissipated to Skyhold guest bedrooms, so there aren't many witnesses to this circus show. Heels clicking and golden skirts crinkling, Lady Montilyet swiftly approaches us, making a decision of unleashing her own diplomatic persona upon the secretary.

"Nonsense," she protests and takes the trembling secretary by his arm. "In all Thedas, Skyhold is the safest place for your master. Poisoned? I'm sure not. I'm staking my very own head on this. Isn't it more likely that the local winds are to blame? They're much colder than the ones blowing in sunshiny Dales the count is used to, and there are only so many ways to warm up here."

She leads him away to her office, mentioning the count is in good hands. The good hands are Sister Regine, who would pass as a physician should anything happen, and me, making sure the messy evidence of this nob overdrinking would go down the cesspool before anybody noble comes downstairs to see it.

A hot clip round the ear almost knocks me down. Right. The vomit.

"Lyna, stop staring and do something already, you knife-ear idiot! You are twelve already, so would you please act accordingly for a change?"

 _A knife-ear._ No, it's alright. I wonder why Sister Regine isn't confused by the Inquisitor being a knife-ear as well, let alone a Dalish. Perhaps I would have had it easier if elves didn't declare war against the world around ten years ago. But then again, how much easier would it have been? Skyhold chantry puts all teenage orphanage kids to work about the fortress, either cleaning the stables, or swiping the yard, or scrubbing the keep. Back when we were much younger, they said it was an honor to do the latter.

I hold my breath, pressing the tongue against the teeth so as not to follow the count's example, and start sweeping the vomit into a more contained heap of slush. Apparently, the sight of it moving inspires the count, and so he produces new portions of vomit for the whole world to see.

"Where's your shovel? Why haven't you brought a shovel? Somebody, please bring here a shovel!"

Hardly having any patience for my answer, the cackling hen of Sister Regine runs off to the storehouse, leaving the count and me alone. His wheezing sounds sick and heavy, he spits whatever is left there to spit, but the stubborn bits and pieces get stuck in his bushy mustache and short combed beard. He tries to wipe them clean, but it only results in him smearing everything over the sleeves and the collar, once crispy white.

And me? I stand there, whistling and looking around for a wine jar which clumsy me have not-so-accidentally spiced up with half a vial of a deathroot poison.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would really appreciate you pointing out any mistakes.

Skyhold orphanage is a place for children who have no parents.

Our moms and dads, recruits of the new Inquisition, were taken by the war with a darkspawn, the Corypheus. We are the ones who have even no grannies or aunts who could have taken care of us instead. The Inquisitor said she is responsible for us being orphans, and that's why she has opened the orphanage, sacrificing the old smithery building for the cause.

She said, we have no parents to love us, but we still have the Maker, and he loves all of his children equally.

At least, that's what the official legend says.

Me and Sister Cecile, we sit in front of a mirror. She runs a wooden hair comb through my light blond hair, gently and carefully. The mirror, it may as well stay forever covered in dark, blurry spots, and the comb, maybe it does miss as many teeth as a mouth of some ancient hag, but I want this moment to last forever.

Sister Cecile, she hums a melody and says, "You're the most beautiful girl in Skyhold."

I inspect my reflection in the mirror, its surface adorned with a web of cracks and smudges. I have a bruise under my eye. My apron almost screams it will never ever get clean again. When Sister Cecile runs the comb through my hair, she often comes across a leaf or a tiny thorn or a twig, and she has to untwine it away. She discards everything she finds down to the floor.

To be frank, the collection of all this rubbish at my feet is a small bush in its own right.

"You're the smartest and the most hardworking kid here," she says. "You could ask the constable to find you some work in the Tower of Magi. Maybe, someone up there would take a liking to you and take you away to a College academy or a Circle."

"Do you want to get rid of me that much?" I ask.

Sister Cecile laughs, and even without having to turn around to see it for myself, I know her brown eyes are a smiling sunshine.

"I don't, Lyna. If it were up to me, I would have moved with you to Val Foret. I have a family there. You would have been learning hunting with my cousin, and I would have been tending cattle."

She makes a smooth central hair parting, the left half a perfect reflection of the right one. Her nimble fingers start braiding my hair. I know she's no witch or even a mage to begin with, but right before my eyes, my reflection changes as if by a spell. Now there's really the most beautiful girl in Skyhold looking back at me in my own reflection.

Well, if you forgive her having a bruise black as night, that is.

"My sister's husband," Sister Cecile continues, "harvests honey each year. In spring, the hills are so full of yellow flowers, and they all are so sweet and fragrant that bees, after having the nectar collected, can't fly back to their hives and so they just crawl back instead. We could help him during harvest and supply ourselves with honey stashes for winter."

She finishes making one braid, pauses, and eyes the result in the uneven surface of the cloudy mirror. She sighs.

"My Evangeline loved honey so much," she sighs. "And Jacob was so proud showing off bee stings."

Skyhold orphanage isn't just a place for children who have no parents.

It's a place for parents who have no children, too.

"But the Maker is harsh," she says and starts plaiting the other braid. She tugs my hair a little harsher, but it doesn't really hurt, and I don't want to interrupt her. "First, he takes my family away, and then he introduces us to each other after I have made my vows."

"Maybe he just loves you a lot?" I ask. "Since, I mean, he doesn't want you to leave."

Sister Cecile chuckles and clicks her tongue.

"The one who loves will never hurt the person they love just because they don't want them to leave. Remember this, little kittie."

Had the hag better known as Sister Regine heard us, she would have definitely burst with righteous fury right on the spot accusing us of heresy.

Sister Cecile fixes the other braid with a ribbon tying it in a tiny Orlesian bow.

"Now, stand up, darling, and let me have a look."

And standing up I do, the unsteady chair squeaking under me. I turn to face her. She looks down at me, a satisfied smile on her face, and swipes away grime from my cheek with her thumb.

Right now, right at this moment, I don't feel like an orphan at all. I feel like just a kid.

It must be really nice, being Diarmuid, I mean. The inquisitorial boy always has a flock of nannies and tutors doting on him all day long.

"Don't listen to others," Sister Cecile says, "and stay away from fights, even if someone calls you a knife-ear. Lyna, you were named after the Hero of Ferelden, and both she and the Inquisitor come from Dalish. On top of that, it was an elf who put an end to the Fourth Blight as well. Your kind is full of heroes. Be proud of it."

I nod, pretending I have no idea how many elves the Inquisitor judges each year. And she, believe me, judges a lot of them. I remember I have witnessed her single-handedly executing six elves all at once.

The youngest one of them, Neville, was raised with me.

"I won't fight again," I reply, my eyes on the floor. "I promise."

"Good."

With a broom in her hands, Sister Cecile starts swooping after us. I head out.

Standing in the doorway, I ask, "But the apostate Solas is an elf, too, right?"

She turns around, her lips forming a frown. She puts the broom against the wall. There's a wrinkle between her eyebrows, the one her face makes when we're caught chasing rats or almost knocking off another noble guest of the Inquisitor.

"He is."

"And we are fighting elves, aren't we?"

"We're fighting dangerous fanatics, Lyna," she replies, her voice stern.

"But there's pretty much nobody among them except for elves, right?"

Sister Cecile lets out a sigh.

"Right," she admits. "Now, why are you asking?"

"I just don't get why they keep us around. Well, I do see why the Inquisitor is still here. She's the Herald of Andraste, after all. But me? Or uncle Cianan from the stables? Or lady Charter? What I mean is wouldn't fighting elves have been much easier without having any elves around?"

Sister Cecile approaches me and sits down on her knees, the same eye level as me.

She gently lifts my face by the chin and says, "It's because the Maker loves all his children equally."

"Does he then hurt all his children equally as well?"

All of a sudden, Sister Cecile almost jumps up, her back to me, her hands and shoulders shaking. She doesn't make a sound.

It's only then I grasp what a stupid thing I have just blurted out.

"Please, forgive me, Sister Cecile," I plead and try to take her by the hand despite her jerking it away. "I didn't want to hurt you. Just please forgive me."

Sister Cecile doesn't turn around to face me. Instead, she blindly pushes me back to the doorway.

"I need to pray," she whispers to the empty room before her. "Just go."

I leave the room and close the door, as silently as possible. Back in the orphanage hall, my eyes meet those of Reeves and Adnan, every inch of their faces radiating with anger. These two are the ones who gave me the black eye, and they got caned for it. If it was up to me, I would have them thrown off Skyhold cliff, have their lifeless bodies laid out somewhere down there, battered and broken, so the two actually got off lightly.

My fists are itching for a second round, but I really need to fetch an empty cup from the kitchen and then head to the cellar. Lately, the Inquisition has restocked its honey stashes, and I know just the right person to share it with.

I can only hope I'm better at loving than the Maker.


	3. Chapter 3

If I'm honest, I saw the Inquisitor up close only a couple of times.

The first time this happens, I'm around eight. She leads this neverending column of soldiers, all shiny and armored and triumphant, returning from whatever expedition that took half a year to be over, and people say she has never left Skyhold for that long, except for that one time when the war against apostate Solas was just starting out. Just about everybody waits for her. Me and Fat Girl Louise, we're short, and so we had to get on top of the wall, the side of it that's unstable, the stonework unrepairable and ready to fall out at any given moment. The slope is so steep they never put patrols there, because no madman would be actually mad enough to plot any evil plans out there or, Maker help him, climb it.

The Inquisitor's light blond hair—almost like mine—her hair is done up in a gorgeous whirlwind of braids. Her gleaming golden armor reflects beams of sunshine all the way around, temporarily blinding either a mass of people in the yard or both of us, me and Fat Girl Louise. It looks as if the "hairy eye" on her breastplate is trying to burn us all down with its fiery glare.

Her snow-white stallion, Equinor, named after the constellation, is whithers to crupper decorated in crimson horsecloth threaded with gold, and people say its saddle is made of true dragon skin. Equinor looks like a copy of snotty Diarmuid's toy horse, except he's huge and the real deal.

The column is greeted by ser Cullen Rutherford, the Inquisitor's advisor and also her husband and the father to Diarmuid. First, they exchange dull speeches and handshakes, and then, not actually following the protocol, kiss in front of everyone. Somewhere from the crowd, there's a cheering coming out, and then another voice asks loudly for more. 

Fat Girl Louise sighs and says, "If only a handsome guy like ser Rutherford kissed me, just like that, for all to see! Then they would have definitely stopped calling me Fat Girl Louise!"

"As if this is possible," I say. "Unlike me, you don't look like lady Lavellan at all. Me and her, we both share the same ear shape and pretty much the same hair color. And above that, you _are_ a fat girl."

After a moment of public display of affection, the Inquisitor and her advisors proceed to the keep where at the time we're let in only before festivities when there's a whole lot of cleaning coming up. Me and Louise, we keep sitting on the wall for a while before angry Sister Regine spots us and shoves us to the orphanage classroom, where they've already started reading the Chant of Light.

After I first see the Inquisitor up close, I try and braid my hair the way hers are, but my arms just don't stretch back far enough, and so the result looks like a heap of ropes instead. Other kids tease me about it more than ever, until the oldest one, Todd Radley, snatches the scissors and cuts off all of my hair.

Or more like, almost all of my hair.

I cry and make squeaky newborn pigs noises, and I actually miss the moment when Todd is interrupted by Neville's fist flying out of nowhere. Everyone gasps. Firstly, because Neville is a known wallflower and he never fights back, even when it gets pretty bad. And secondly, because Neville is almost sixteen, and he has some half a year left to live under the orphanage roof. Sister Regine has always praised him for his quiet behavior, and she actually promised to write a letter of recommendation for him and send it to the Redcliffe chantry where she had dutifully served for ten years.

"Just try and touch her again!" Neville roars.

He gets so riled up that when the other kids circle up against him, he just throws everyone around like a veteran soldier he isn't, and when there are no more bullies left, it is he who starts attacking everyone who laughed and jeered at my hair being cut off.

Honestly, I'm thankful for him stepping up, but he is too late. All that's left of my hair are uneven locks cutting off which would be an act of mercy.

"Neville, stop!" I cry and clutch on to his shirt. "The sisters will come here any minute! They will punish you! They won't write the letter for you!"

"To the Void with them and their letters!" he replies. "What did they ever do for us? I don't need their charity! I won't go and serve in their stupid chantry! I know best how to live my life!"

In a couple of years, he and another five elves all stand in chains, on a scaffold.

And this is the next time I see the Inquisitor up close.

She wears this black mourning chainmail that jingles each time she moves. Her huge gloves made out of thick leather grip the Inquisition sword, thin and shiny and probably light, too. I wonder if maybe I could get to hold it someday.

"Is it really possible to chop off heads with a sword like that?" asks Reeves. He, too, can't look away from it.

"It is," Todd replies. Todd is a young recruit of the Inquisition forces now. He had taken part in two attacks against Fen'Harel's elves, and the orphanage kids listen to his stories every Sunday, gaping with awe.

"But the Inquisitor is an elf, too. Is she really going to execute her own kind just like that?" asks Adnan.

"She is," Todd replies with a nod, his expression solemn.

According to rumors, Todd had managed to fall in love with an elf girl from the fortress where his unit was last detached. All the first week she had been flirting with him, all the second one she had been playing the lute for him, and all the third week they'd been engaged in things Sister Regine, red-faced and stuttering, forbids us to talk about.

Today the elf girl stands to the right from Neville.

Ser Rutherford gestures us to silence. The Inquisitor turns to the crowd, and all Skyhold goes still. Even the colors up high, always flapping in the wind, calm down, obedient.

She says, "People say that because I'm an elf, I'm being lenient with my kind, that I protect it. People say I shield followers of apostate Solas. These rumors spread so far and wide that even people living here, in Skyhold, tend to believe them."

The Inquisitor looks for someone in the crowd, and then her eyes fix near me. She asks, loudly, "Sister Regine, are all the orphanage children here today?"

"They all are, your worship."

Executions here in Skyhold are far from being a rarity, but usually the Chantry sisters, abiding by the lady Lavellan's will, don't allow us to attend them. We're too young, they say. But today the sisters hurried us to the scaffolds and told us to stand as close as possible.

I turned ten just about a week ago.

"I find no joy in execution, especially in the execution of someone who grew up here, in Skyhold. But I am not lenient. I sympathize with no criminals, and traitors of all people are no exception. Neville, step forward."

Neville does, reluctantly. His sharp features are a bizarre painting of purple bruises and crimson abrasions, but it's still the same old Neville—Neville, who hid with me from bullies; Neville, who lectured me about getting into fights; Neville, who stepped up for me while everybody else was either laughing or trembling with fear. Now Neville stands proud, his head held up high, and the glare he casts to the crowd is full of as much hate and anger as I haven't seen ever, even when being beaten for the shape of my ears. For a brief moment, he spots me and my braids, them long now, and his expression changes. His lips widen in the faintest of smiles.

I shouldn't be crying for enemies of the Inquisition, but my eyes don't seem to be aware of that.

"We fed you," says—no, announces lady Lavellan. "We cared for you. You were like a son to the Chantry sisters. And yet, barely outside the fortress, you have joined apostates of Solas, the traitor to the Inquisition. Your last words."

"What you call care, Inquisitor, any living thing would call hatred," Neville replies, his voice loud. A wave of chatter ripples through the crowd and some male voice gasps and says that must be a huge lie.

That someone must have never been an orphanage elf.

"Each week, each day we were being despised for crimes we didn't commit. But you didn't care. You didn't care when caning the troublemakers had no effect. You didn't care when we were pushed into dirt. You didn't care when little Lyna had her hair cut off just because she was unlucky enough to be born an elf. That's not the way to raise children, Inquisitor. That's the way to raise wolves. And thus I will die today not as a traitor to the Inquisition, but as a wolf of Fen'Harel."

Lady Lavellan grimaces as if she'd just been whipped with fire. She grips the hilt of the sword with both of her hands, and says, "Then on your knees, a wolf of Fen'Harel. You know where to lay your head."

He kneels down on his own and places his head against a wooden stump so that he's facing us. And yet, he doesn't look at the crowd. He doesn't look at me either. He looks at some faraway point invisible to everyone else, and a tear slips out of the corner of his eye. All of a sudden, there's too much air inside my lungs, and I want to support him saying something, crying out loud, _Your fight isn't over!_ Or, _You are a true wolf of Fen'Harel's pack!_

I feel someone's hand on my shoulder. I look up to see Sister Cecile, barely shaking her head no.

_Not now, little kittie._

The blade, swinging down through the air with a swoosh, falls on Neville's neck. As dark blood splatters at my feet, I stumble back with fear, and then the chopped off head rolls into the basket below with a thud.

They lift away his body, and then it's Todd's lover's turn. It ends the same. Then lady Lavellan executes the other four.

Lady Lavellan, she spoke the truth, after all. She does not protect elves. She did protect not an elf, ever.

I swipe the aristocratic vomit into beige and thick sludge when the heavy door to the advisors' wing bursts open, and out emerges the Inquisitor. She almost sprints down along the central passage, the ends of her red formal attire flapping behind like wings of some bird right out of fairytales, her crisp white shirt sticking damply to her body, her numerous braids tied together in a loose tail. The Inquisitor looks around, barking out orders to lord Martin, the shorty constable of the keep. The latter one is notably puffed, looking more like a new recruit out of breath after his first training with ser Rutherford than a constable. I hear the echo, bits of words, fragments of hushing and vowel sounds.

And then, her gaze freezes on me.

Right until this moment, I was sure no one noticed me poisoning the wine jar.

She nods towards me, and I clutch the broomstick once again, but this time not because of my not wanting to approach the vomited corner of the hall but because of my not wanting to leave it. Should anything happen, I'd tell them I was set up, by the 'wolves', by the bards, by the Imperium agents, by literally whoever, and all poor little sad me was left to do was following the orders.

While in truth I was just dying to know whether anyone noble would really, really die.

She comes close in fast long steps, the constable barely managing to keep up with her pace, their heels clicking without any pattern or even rhythm to begin with, reminding of what Avvar tribes call music.

"Your worship, are you sure about her?" Lord Martin asks, waving a tablet with parchments in front of her face. He turns a sheet, and another one, and then another, and then gets back to the first one. "Your worship, I'd suggest you keep looking. Your worship—"

"For Maker's sake, shut up!" she snaps, keeping flying at me, an arrow into an aim.

She stops so close I can see all her features in detail. As it turns out, her eyes are of sky blue color, and there's a constellation of pale freckles decorating her nose, elegant like a delicate owl beak. She is as beautiful as a legendary heroine should be, but the time and her position in the Inquisition take their toll. It's easy to call her simply 'adult' today, but in ten years, when the wrinkles across her forehead and around her eyes become deeper, it maybe would be more honest to call her either old or venerable if you don't forget your etiquette lessons by that time.

Lord Martin, the Fereldan of forty years with his hair cut in Orlesian manner, halts right behind her and starts staring a hole into me, frowning. He pointedly eyes the back of the Inquisitor's head, then me again. He loudly clears his throat.

Speaking of etiquette.

"Your worship," I greet her, finally remembering myself, bowing a bit lower than required.

"Lyna, right?" she asks softly.

I look up, surprised. I certainly didn't expect her to know all the orphans by their names.

"Right, your worship."

She inspects my face, my braids with tiny bows on their ends, my hands used to brooms and shovels, and even the dirt under my nails. She inspects every spot and wrinkle on my skirt and apron.

I don't know how to tell her no one keeps traces of their mischief on themselves, but it doesn't really look like she's searching for anything.

Usually, Sister Cecile gives me a longing look like that when she thinks of Evangeline.

The Inquisitor's expression changes to a more collected one, and she says, "Leave your broom and follow me."

The broom isn't really going to help if they charge me, its only kind of attack being splashing noble vomit around, but it's still scary to just leave it.

"W-why?" I ask, but lady Lavellan is already far ahead.

Lord Martin replies to me instead, "Stop asking questions, girl, and do as you're told. You're going to be given a too honorable job."

Knowing that honorable jobs here include but are not limited to cleaning guests' vomit, I turn sick imagining what a too honorable job might mean. Are they leading me to a chamber with three people throwing up all at once?

And yet, they don't drag me through mazes of corridors into an interrogation room, nor they lead me to the chamber where Sister Regine is already nursing another guest who was lucky enough to drink from the poisoned jar neither. Instead, we approach the door to the wing I've never cleaned, and moreover, I'm being led there without a broom.

The only explanation I can think of is, here, deep in Skyhold, the Inquisitor secretly offers sacrifices to some demon, and I'm on the menu list today.

After a flight of stairs, we approach another door, guards on both sides of it, their faces straight. Lady Lavellan opens it wide, and at the same instant, I'm blinded by an ocean of light. I keep my eyes shut with pain, but Lord Martin pushes me inside, and it feels like entering the sun.

My head spins when I finally open my eyes. Tall stained-glass windows illustrate a scene from the Chant of Light, turning the whole room into a kaleidoscope of colors. The bed is what everybody must be calling a king-sized one. The nightstand is carved out of some reddish wood. The corner aligned to the balcony is furnished with bookcases, with rows of books on engineering on top of books on astrology on top of books on magic on top of novels. Wedged between some of them are strange items I see for the first time.

I'm in the Inquisitor's chambers.

Carpets of rare animal pelts are lying on the floor. A bear at the bedside, a tiger under the bureau, a golden ram at the doorway to what must be a storeroom.

A huge black wolf pelt is displayed on the balcony floor.

Ser Rutherford plays chess with his son, sitting on a carved coach with crimson upholstery. Diarmuid, this round spoilt boy, is frozen holding a chesspiece above the board, as if unable to make a move.

Who names their son Diarmuid anyway? Did no one tell the happy parents it's not necessary to put in a child's name all the letters at the same time?

They both get up, noticing us. Ser Rutherford's not even hiding his curiosity while looking at me until he sees me staring right back. Diarmuid—unlike the Inquisitor, I haven't seen him up close ever—his expression is as puzzled as I guess mine must be, too. His right cheek is sporting a tiny powdered sugar spot, and a brown smudge on his lower lip gives away him recently eating chocolate. His dark hair is combed, and his blue jacket doesn't have a single wrinkle, let alone a blot.

Given the choice, any orphan would have agreed on cleaning the stables for a week if that would mean becoming Diarmuid for a day in return.

Of course, I would be the first to volunteer.

Lady Lavellan is arguably the tallest elf woman I've ever seen, but, standing beside her husband, she looks tiny and fragile. Her thin dolly hands fall on Diarmuid's shoulders, and it's hard to believe the very same woman had been fighting darkspawns and dragons.

It's even harder to believe it's the very same woman who chopped Neville's head off.

As if on cue, Lord Martin pushes me forward again, to step closer.

"Young master's tutors don't feel well today," he announces, puffing. "And so, the Inquisitor chose you to be his nanny for the time being."

Are there no Chantry sisters left in Skyhold?

"I'll do it, my lady," I say, bowing low. Thinking I probably need to impress them, I add, "I have helped the Chantry sisters to babysit the younger children. I know the way."

Lady Lavellan laughs and folds hands across her chest.

"Is that so? Are you saying the orphanage got children even younger than you while I wasn't watching?"

She and sir Rutherford, they share a knowing smile, and I pretend I'm not red with shame at all.

Alright, Lady Lavellan _might have_ learned the names of the elven children after she had to execute Neville, but I hardly believe she can tell our age on the fly. She didn't defeat Corypheus wielding her sharp memory, did she?

"I don't mean the actual age, but... er... the mental one," I lie. "I mean the children who don't behave."

I finish off with a smile, as pretty and wide as I'm capable of. Also, I curtsy, just to be sure.

A thought is crossing my mind I must look like a total idiot.

"Then, being as experienced as you are, you probably don't need to be instructed much. He has no lessons for today, so please just watch him not to hurt himself. Martin, escort her to Diarmuid's room, would you."

Lord Martin bows to the inquisitorial couple, and then tells us, "Follow me."

While he leads us away from the Inquisitor's chambers, Diarmuid tries to have a better look at me and my ears. He still holds the chesspiece, gripping it to himself, as if afraid I might steal it.

We enter a room, smaller than the previous one, but just as rich and furnished. On the eastern side, there's a neat bed made of dark wood, a Fereldan folklore hunting scene carved on its head. The bedcover is green, with a blue and pink diamond-shaped pattern all over it. Then there's a bed table, with a spread-out map pinned to it under a candlestick. On the other side of the bed, there's a wardrobe showing off a sleeve of a warm leather jacket.

Along with another candlestick, there's a second map lying on the inquisitorial son's bureau, its corners trying to curl back except all four of them are restrained under the weight of a quill, two vacant candlesticks, and a simple grey boulder. All this ensemble is complete with a pair of compasses and a ruler on top. The walls across the windows are furnished with two bookcases, but only one of them is keeping books inside. On the shelves of the other one, there's a set of carefully displayed spying glasses, maps, and maps, and maps again, and even a small crossbow.

Almost all of these items I've seen before only once when a dwarf traveler paid a visit to us in the orphanage. He told us about the places he had been to, the places that are many months of travel away from Skyhold.

It's hard to tell for sure, but it feels like Diarmuid dedicates all his time trying to escape from here.

Lord Martin pulls me closer by my elbow and says, his voice hushed, "If I learn you've dared to steal anything from the room, I will personally drag you to the prison."

I stare back, not feeling generous enough for a reply until he lets me go.

"No running," he adds louder. "No climbing the stairs, no playing."

He bows and, giving me a final stare, leaves. It's not like I wouldn't have nicked anything from here as a souvenir, it's just I have pretty much nowhere to keep it.

"So what's your name?" Diarmuid asks.

He sits on the bed, his feet dangling inches above the floor.

"I'm Lyna."

"Can you teach me anything?"

Yeah, I can teach you how to handle without all the luxury present. Instead, I say aloud, "I can only teach you how to clean your room without anybody's help."

He laughs at this and then says, "So you would be of no use then. I can do this already. No maid cleans the floor the right way. I don't know how to explain to them that mopping is fine only when it comes to the lakes and the seas, but they must not mop the lands or the mountains. They're allowed only to swipe them instead."

So, the precious inquisitorial boy has a Skyhold of ego and some serious head issues to deal with. Wait a little bit, Skyhold, new gossip is on its way.

"Look," he says and jumps off the bed. He points his little fat finger somewhere at the floor under it. The flooring looks like a dimly familiar pattern, and Diarmuid, being a helpful boy he is, explains, "That's the Amaranthine ocean, you can wash there."

I blink once, then twice, and then it dawns upon me.

The whole floor is a map of Thedas.

"I have asked to move my bed over it because one day I'm going to cross it and discover new lands. Look, Lyna, the wardrobe is divided in two by our Frostback Mountains, this place should be swiped only. The Orlesian half is for formal attires, the Fereldan one is for warm clothes only."

The locations are actually labeled. Two of the legs of the table stand upon the Arlathan forest. The bookcases are towering over Tirashan and the Hunterhorn Mountains.

"And you're standing on the Tevinter Imperium," Diarmuid says, looking at my feet. "Or on Solas, to be precise."

I lift my right foot up a little and look down at the spot beneath me. The name of the most wanted enemy of the Inquisition is written in brown, and apparently, servants, disobeying Diarmuid's direct orders, have applied a little too much effort trying to remove it. The floor around the label is scraped, and washed-out, and is white with baking soda smudges.

But the name is still there, intact.

"What, the apostate has a city of his own?" I ask.

"Don't you know anything at all? The city was founded long before—well, nobody knows when exactly he was born—but anyways, long before he had joined the Inquisition. It's not much of a secret, you know."

Diarmuid grabs me by my hand, and we cross Vyrantium, Carastes, and Qarinus, the cities I knew only by talks. We approach another table, another map, this one colorful with green, red, and blue charcoal marks.

"These," he says, pointing at green crosses, "are the Inquisition headquarters. They would serve as resting points in my travels. And these," he adds tapping his finger on one of the blue crosses, "are the most renowned academies of the Colleague of Magi, and Circles. My father had been serving here," Diarmuid says pointing somewhere at the lake the name of which I can't make out. Then he points at the Free Marches and says, "But he moved here after those mages rebelled. He served right until the local chantry exploded."

Yeah, I remember some of it told during the orphanage lessons. A tyrant, a blood mage, and a fanatic. The most overused plot in Orlesian theatre plays, people say.

"What about the red crosses?" I ask. There are a lot of them in Tevinter. Par Vollen is almost red with them, too. "What do they stand for?"

Diarmuid doesn't reply. Instead, he glances at me and, cocking his freckled nose, says, "I command you to escort me up to the fortress wall."

"Command me? I am a nanny, not a servant."

"If you disobey me, I'll tell everyone you have been taking my things without asking and have been throwing them at me," he says, shaking his round cheeks. "I'll tell my mom that you have threatened me not to tell anyone. They will cane you and throw you into prison—and only if I step up for you."

Can I go back to the vomiting counts now, please?

We leave the bedrooms wing and head through the main hall to the exit. For some reason, the dining tables are moved away. Probably servants prepare the hall for a ball, but I see neither musicians nor chambermen.

The yard is eerily silent. Several guardsmen stand by the outside kitchen door, the so-called lady Charter's investigators talking to the servants. I'm not really dying to know when it will dawn upon them that the mysterious poisoner has been escorting the inquisitorial boy, but on the other hand, I'm curious about how the investigation is going.

We approach the fortress wall stairs, and Diarmuid says, "Hold me so I don't fall down."

On my own, I run up and down the stairs in a blink of an eye, but this sweet tooth turns the whole ascension into torture. Fat Girl Louise is probably twice as big as he is, but even she climbs up almost stepping on my heels. Diarmuid hefts his thick clumsy legs, he puffs as if someone had dropped two potato sacks on his shoulders, but he doesn't slow down.

Moreover, he doesn't even stop to catch his breath.

We're finally up, and Diarmuid, almost falling with fatigue, staggers across to a battlement gap. He leans forward so much that if someone literally kicks his ass right now, ser Rutherford would definitely lose his only heir.

"What do you think is out there?" he asks, pointing somewhere far at the endless mountains.

All the mountain ranges, as if being multiplied copies of each other, are pale purple with haze. The peaks, as if being multiplied copies of each other as well, are covered with white caps of snow. You look at them long enough, and surely it'll seem like the whole Thedas is a neverending mountain range on its own.

Diarmuid doesn't even wait for my answer. He says, "I know what is. There is a second entrance to Orzammar, the one that got buried under a rockslide three ages ago. Since then, the dwarven trade route to Orlais lies around a wide mountain range. At first, it took three months longer to reach its destination, but Cedric Orestone enhanced the cartwheels manufacturing technology, and their lifetime got longer. Now the dwarves travel as fast as they did back when this entrance was open."

He sighs and says, "Wish I could open it up again,"

He goes dreamily silent, and we stand there, not saying a word. In the yard, behind our backs, guardsmen keep talking to folks. The tranquil librarian talks to an investigator and gestures at the stables, and there, uncle Cianan shrugs to another guardsman and leads him away to the kennels.

Diarmuid says, "Let's go to the eastern wall."

I follow him, half paying attention to his stories. He says Skyhold was abandoned by the time the Inquisitor discovered it. And, by the way, she actually wasn't the Inquisitor just yet; Lady Lavellan got that title a little later. And Skyhold, it was found for her by the apostate Solas himself.

"Back in time," he says, looking all important, "they called apostates the ones who refused to study in Circles. Sure, now being an apostate means being an elf who has joined Solas's army, but a lot was different back then."

We walk through the tower full of crates with blankets, old but usable furniture, flags, and curtains waiting to be fixed.

The eastern wall overlooks the local garden that spreads carrot smell around, and, as always, the mountains.

"And there?" Diarmuid asks, pointing somewhere far. "Do you know what's there?"

"Ferelden, I guess."

"That's not all there is. There's supposed to be an entrance to a dwarven kingdom, but not to Orzammar. I've read in one book that Orzammar wasn't even founded by the time dwarves carved out the entrance. And according to another book, it once was a home for Solas's elves. No once checked if it's intact, but I think the apostates have a hideout there."

He says, "This is the closest red cross on my map."

"Diarmuid!"

The voice comes from somewhere down in the garden, and once I look for the source of it, I see Lord Marting making a fist.

"I said no stairs!" he screams, already storming toward the staircase.

"The red crosses are the places I am not allowed to," Diarmuid continues. "I'll have to fight to pass them."

His face becomes tomato red and he continues,

"I'm not allowed to lift anything heavy. I'm not allowed to fight or to fall to begin with. Mother invites a doctor after a doctor, and they all say that 'enhanced physical activity would damage the young master's body.'"

He says, "They add opium to my food so that I wouldn't feel pain from my bones spreading apart from each other. Mother says I am cursed by the Solas himself, and that's why she doesn't allow any mirrors in my room. She says when I was a baby someone accidentally brought an eluvian to my bedroom, and with it, Solas cast a very powerful spell. My bones are always spreading like that, even now."

Well, maybe Diarmuid is a little fat snoot, but even so I can't force myself telling him that Skyhold walls promenade is the only kind of travel he'll ever have.

This boy with his weird map-room, with his collection of endless spying glasses, and with the longing look he gives the endless mountain ranges he'll never climb, he takes away all the control I had over my tongue.

"Actually, I'm considered to be quite a fighter," I say. "In case you ever decide to storm through the red crosses, you just take me with you and I'll do all the fighting for you."

He turns at me, his eyes wide with awe. "You promise?"

"Sure I do."

My answer lifts his spirits enough for him to grab me by my hand and drag me back to the keep. Lord Martin, noticing us going back, slows down his pace but doesn't actually stop. Diarmuid and me, we walk through the first floor of the library tower, its walls covered with bookcases as much as a chevalier is covered by his armor. The main hall is emptied now. I see no servants, no musicians, no guests. Only ever the guards.

Finally back in his room, Diarmuid runs up to his books and picks out one guide after another. He shows me all sorts of places and tells me their stories, and then imagines both of us there, somewhere in the illustrations or between the paragraphs. When his imagination burns out, he fetches ships replicas out from a chest beside a window.

"Uncle Blackwall," he says setting up the tiny fleet of sailing ships, dreadnoughts, and triremes on the painted floor, "has carved out all the details."

It's hard to tell for sure, but maybe happiness is what it is.

Diarmuid is waving a frigate around imitating our sailing during a storm when the door bursts wide open. The Inquisitor dashes in and runs at her son with an embrace.

"Thank the Maker you're alright," she says holding him tight, swaying slightly from side to side. She affectionately runs her hand across his hair, kisses him on cheeks and doesn't let him go.

She lifts her gaze at me, and suddenly the floor takes up all my interest. Well, it is interesting, after all.

I stand on Solas, again.

"Has anyone brought you any food, Lyna?" she asks, straightening up.

I shake my head no.

"Why, mother?" Diarmuid asks.

"It's the spies again, my son," Lady Lavellan replies. "Someone had poisoned several barrels of wine. Ten people got very sick. And another three are dead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though Grammarly saves my ass once again, I'd really like any feedback on my English. Is there any confusing choice of words? Maybe I fucked up tenses somewhere? (I know I could.) Any misplaced commas? This being said, I'll do my best updating the story at least once a month. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

When the Maker decides who gets to be born who he rolls dices. Somewhere in his golden halls, he shakes the dices in his miraculous hands and then throws them down on a table. Probably it's the same table on top of which he keeps a thick book with prayers he never responds to, a pint of ale beside it—and oh, look, there's a muzzle of an old happy dog on his laps!

Instead of marks from one to six, sides of one of the dices show if a newborn is going to be a human, or an elf, or a dwarf, or a qunari, or any other living thing; sides of the second one indicate whether this would be a boy or a girl, in a rich family or in a dirt poor one, and so on. You get the idea. When the Maker rolls a noble human mage, he claps his hands, saying, "Jolly good!" When he rolls an elven girl with no magical gift—and by the way, she is going to become an orphan soon—he frowns and then says, "Whatever," preparing to roll the dices for another baby.

Well, it might be whatever for him, but here you are, short and thin and weak in comparison to any other option. And not only that: soon it turns out you're going to be the youngest kid in the orphanage. You don't need to wear a sign saying "Kick me!"; everyone will follow the instruction anyway. When you're a helpless sissy, you learn the significance of physical power the hard way.

I think I'm around five, and there are lots of kids around for now. Soon some of them are going to get adopted, some are going to stay in Skyhold for work, and some even are going to vanish into thin air. But as I've said, for now, there's a horde of us, and we're so loud any Chantry Sister becomes a victim of a severe headache after just ten minutes of being around us.

I very vaguely understand the difference between a human or a dwarf or an elf. The world is simple. There are kids and then there are adults, and that is that.

My blissful ignorance is not to last.

"D'ya know who your parents are?" asks Reeves.

Reeves is a round boy who likes telling everyone his father is a veteran of the Tevinter campaign who's going to take him home one day. Usually, by lunchtime, it turns out his father is actually a broke farmer from Anderfels who tries to save just enough money to come all the way up to Skyhold to pick up his boy. By the night his father is prone to die, but his mother becomes a rich Orlesian dowager who is busy in preparations for her son's homecoming reception with whom she was separated by cruel workings of fate.

I enjoy his stories even though I don't quite understand how one kid can have two different fathers and a mother all at the same time, so, anticipating my story, I babble, "Nah."

I imagine them arriving in secret to smuggle me back home, posing as laundrywomen, or as booksellers, or as candle makers, or anyone, really. I don't know why would they do that in secret or why all the guise, but I know they'll hide me in a basket and drive me away in a cart, and by the next morning the Chantry sisters will be crying their eyes out when they discover my disappearance.

"Your parents," says Reeves beginning my story, "were humans."

There's a snicker coming out from somewhere behind his back, and some other boy tries to suppress a smile away from his face.

"Whoa," I say.

"Yeah," he says. "But when your parents discovered you were born a knife-ear, do you know what they did then?"

"Nah," I say.

"Your father murdered your mother right on the spot, with your very own knife-ears. He couldn't help his anger."

I gasp with horror and cover my mouth with palms. My eyes turn saucer-wide, and Reeves goes on telling the naked hard truth.

"He then kills himself the same way, but not before writing a farewell note. And do you know what the note said?"

I can't even squeak now, this all being too much. I just shake my head no.

"The note said that the family was killed by their knife-ear daughter."

This story is the worst, I don't like it a bit. 

I stomp and cry, "It's not true!"

"It is!" insists Reeves.

Someone behind his back adds, "Knife-ear! Knife-ear!"

The world turns blurry with hot tears. All I see is everyone pointing fingers at me, and all I hear is them calling me names. I want this to stop.

"No, it's not," I repeat, but no longer sure about it.

I see my wicked father, stabbing my poor mother with my own ears. I see then him killing himself with grief and leaving me on the floor until Chantry sisters discover me with my ears dripping with blood. 

My cry turns into wail, and I scream, "It's not true! It isn't true!"

I hate my ears so much I pull at them to tear them apart from the sides of my head. It hurts, actually. It hurts terribly, but all my efforts are fruitless. Then I start hitting myself in the face. I wail so loud someone mistakes it for an alarm horn, and recruits storm the yard before discovering what must look like just another petty squabble. They turn around, and meanwhile, I cry my heart out mourning my parents, my own very first victims.

It isn't true, I want to say, but my mouth doesn't move with the wail, and there are strings of snoot and tears mixed up hanging between my lips. I can't even open my eyes, that's how much they burn with tears.

It takes half a day for Sister Cecile to soothe me and explain all the intricate differences between Thedosian nations.

"Of course you didn't kill anyone with these wonderful ears of yours!" she says, setting me on her lap. She sighs, saying, "This is Reeves is going to be the end of us."

I wipe away the drying out tears with my sleeve, and Sister Cecile says, "Let's go and check puppies in the kennels!"

I hurry to nod yes because I worry she might change her mind any moment, and we go to see little mabaris. The big dogs bark and snarl at me so loud I'm too scared to come an inch closer, so Sister Cecile persuades the kennel master to pick up for us a couple of squishy pups. I pet them and give them kisses, and then, after we're back at the orphanage, I fall asleep dreaming the sweetest dreams.

How little I needed to be happy.

And yet, with all her chantry-like good intentions, Sister Cecile back then didn't plan on teaching me life lessons. She just wanted to soothe an orphan is all. She didn't tell me that occasionally some people pretty much deserve to be beaten, and therefore I'm having my first fist fight without any instructions or anyone's approval.

This happens in a year or so. By the time, I learned that of all round-earred kids boys are the worst, so I'm not even bothering befriending them. The girls, on the other hand, can be bullies too, but at least they never cross the line. And speaking of my kin, they're not the best friends material. Neville, for example, is too old to play with me, and Rosaly, although just a year older than me, is so silent and such a wallflower that I'll have a better chance at talking to an apple tree than her.

I approach Rita, Adele, and Simone, three besties older than me by a couple of years. They hold makeshift dolls playing either Inquisition or house. The dolls are supposed to be three inseparable lady knights, but one can never tell what they're dressed in; one moment the cloth pieces wrapping the straw bodies are sets of shining armor, and the next one they're royal gowns.

No magic can compare to wonders of children's imagination.

I come up with my own doll, just as makeshift one as theirs. She's dressed in a sackcloth piece belted with rope, and there's a long twig sticking through her hand—that's how I depicted a mage wielding a staff.

Her name is Matilda.

The girls are besieging an old broken barrel of a castle when I interrupt them. 

"I want to play with you."

Rita is the leader, and she glances around grimacing at me and then states, matter-of-factly, "Well, we don't."

"I have a doll."

The girls then pause craning their necks to have a better look at Matilda. They appraise her with an air of veteran doll players, having gone through the "Fifth Blight", and an "Exalted March", and even the "Fall of Tevinter". Behind almost all of the events are three girls, with armies clashing each other to win their hearts. The girls lift their gaze at me.

"We need to counsel," says Rita. All three turn around, scurry away from me and huddle into a tight circle leaning close to each other. Knife-ears they might be, but they are pretty useless when I try to overhear what the girls whisper about.

When they're finished, Adele hands her doll to the other two and, looking all happy and excited, runs away further into the yard. Only Rita and Simone approach me.

"We will accept you but you have to pass initiation first."

I glance over to see Adele hectically fumbling in the grass like a bloodhound on a walk. I would have thought she has lost something important if not for a sneer plastered across her face. With an expression like that, no one ever searches for anything lost. With an expression like that, girls usually plant grass-snakes into someone's shoes.

And of course, I don't know that yet neither.

"What initiation?" I ask.

No one answers. Instead, Simone calls out to Adele, "Hurry up, will you!"

Adele runs back with a live stag beetle trapped in her hands. It tries to spread its wings and fly away, it moves its antlers having no idea how to clutch at the human's finger to be set free, but Adele holds him mercilessly fast.

"Each of us ate a beetle," says Rita. "If you eat a beetle too, we will know you're a true friend and we will play with you."

With Matilda under my armpit, I grab the beetle, holding it so as not to lose. It's almost my palm long, and I shiver imagining putting it into my mouth.

"But it isn't tasty," I say trying not to cringe with disgust.

"Actually it tastes like something in-between chicken and marmalade," adds Rita.

Chicken and marmalade can't have an in-between taste at all, but her words bring me some comfort. I stare at the beetle, thinking maybe it would be nicer to kill it first and only then eat it, but I'm so afraid to lose the girls' respect that, taking a deep breath, I thrust the beetle into my mouth and crunch off the lower half of its body.

It tastes like earth or insipid vegetables. Still, it wouldn't have been half as horrible if not for the feeling of his legs clutching on my tongue. I valiantly chew half of its body, and it feels like the beetle's trying to squeeze through my lips nevertheless.

What you wouldn't do for new friends.

Adelle is the first to burst out laughing. As if the laughter were a contagious disease, the next one it claims is Simone. Rita holds on the longest, but she, too, gives up, and to the loudest horselaugh at that.

"Oh, you're idiot," she manages, holding her sides. "Did you really believe we ate beetles?"

With my mouth full with the chewed stag beetle, I ask, "What about the initiation?"

The collective cackle grows even louder, and then finally it dawns on me.

My hand still holds the other half of the beetle, the one with the antlers. Its upper legs clutch on to my palm, and maybe it's still trying to figure out why can't it feel own wings or lower legs. Or even worse, it did feel every moment of the other half being chewed and ground between my teeth. The poor thing won't make it.

No one should ever die a death like that, even a beetle.

I put the beetle's remains down on the grass, doing my best in acting respectful to my victim. Maybe I'm only six, but even I understand that the three girls have as much to do with its demise as I do. And if not, at least I'm not laughing at the poor thing.

Rita is choking with laughter the moments she catches my fist. I hit her at random, but I try to aim for her face. She squeals and attempts to hit the shorter me back, but I'm fueled with rage so when I go at her she just falls under the chaotic rain of my hits. I don't know how it came to that, but Matilda is in my hands now, assisting me, scrabbling Rita's face with her twig of a staff. Me, I'm not trying as much to fight or anything as to hurt, so when Rita protects her face with hands, I spread them apart and then spit the chewed beetle into her eyes.

Adele and Simone run off squealing and calling Chantry sisters for help, and me and Rita, we start gathering an audience—other orphanage children who cheer loudly, expressing their excitement with the sight; the Inquisition soldiers who shuffle around, hesitant to interfere; and even the milking goat stoops to paying us some of her attention, staring at us with those horizontal irises of hers. Me, meanwhile I keep hitting Rita on the nose, on the lips, on the forehead; I pull her hair, scratch and swear the foulest of words.

"Idiot!" I cry. "Stupid cow!"

Well, maybe Rita can't really fight back because they teach us in the orphanage that picking on kids is bad, and she turns out to be one of the few who actually follows the rule. Maybe, she's just scared. In any case, my first battle ends with my victory, a series of hurting slaps on my arse, with me put vigil in the corner ever fusty with raw clay, and a missed dinner.

But still—with my victory.

As the days pass by, I become friends with the corner I'm always put in, and Sister Cecile picks a reading from the library to kill the time while watching me. I'm not rich with victories yet—thanks to me being the youngest, a girl, and an elf—but I'm not going to give up.

Then, several months after Todd makes me an unwanted haircut, I hear someone knocking on the orphanage door. The knocks are so loud their vibrations reach the corner I'm being shoved in for the umpteenth time. Except for me and Sister Cecile, there's no one inside: the children are playing in the yard and the older kids are busy working in the keep. Sister Cecile puts her book away and moves to open the door.

I hear the door creaking and then nothing.

"H-hello," I finally hear Sister Cecile getting her tongue around.

Curiosity gets better of me and I turn around to see a qunari squeezing into the doorway. He's not simply tall—he's huge and grey like a rock, and the floor beneath him moans with loud creaks. He unintentionally looms over Sister Cecile who desperately tries to look more confident and collected.

Oh, and he also holds a bouquet of flowers.

It's not like these are some pretty flowers with vibrant yellow petals or puffy rosy buds that young recruits sometimes pick for tavern girls, but they are flowers nonetheless, thorny and green and decorated with dusty white and raspberry red.

"This is for the orphanage," the qunari says, his voice a thunder rumble far in the mountains.

"Thanks," Sister Cecile responds with a polite smile. "The children will love the flowers. They will be very glad."

"This isn't to make them glad. This is to boost their morale."

The herb in the bouquet, _maraikh_ , says the qunari, would give one strength and dull their pain if they inhale it when it's dried. In Par Vollen, young fighters use it in their training. If you pick it after its buds bloom, there's a high chance that the one who inhales it will go mad or die—if they're not qunari, of course. Our unexpected guest says he picked it immature, he did specifically it for the orphanage.

"In that case, I have to return your gift," Sister Cecile says sharply and grabs the door handle. "We do not fix up cockfights here, we're raising children."

The qunari asks, "Do you know what's special about bitches?"

"Enough," Sister Cecile snaps. "Leave this place immediately. This is not a tavern or some qunarian den or anything like that!"

He patiently waits for her to finish, and then goes on, "They tend to cringe, bitches do. We, bipeds, have enough exceptions to forget the rule, but it's a rule nonetheless. Surely, it doesn't' apply to the cases of when someone threatens children. That's when females show how sharp their claws and fangs are."

He nods at me, and my heart starts racing. 

The qunari says, "You'll break a fighter into a bitch like that, obedient and weak."

Sister Cecile follows his gaze, and I instantly turn to face the corner.

I hear approaching clicks of her heels and then the bedroom door slams shut: she doesn't want me to peek. Still, I think I can still overhear it all, so I leave my post and then lean my ear closer to the door, spying on.

"I forbid you to talk about this to her. She makes enough trouble as it is, she doesn't need any of your flowers or your... instructions."

"If she didn't need my instructions, she would have been more victorious."

Actually, I couldn't agree more with him, but Sister Cecile has her own grown-up opinion on this.

"I repeat, I forbid you teaching her how to fight. Now, please, leave this place immediately."

As the slam suggests, Sister Cecile closes the door behind him, applying much more force than needed at that. She makes no attempt to open the bedroom door though, despite the time of my standing in the corner is up. Still, for appearance, I wait for a little bit before moving out. In the window, I watch the qunari leaving, his head hung and the bouquet still in his hands as if he were a rejected lover.

Qunari are not common guests inside Skyhold walls, and they are not in fact qunari at all. They are what's called _tal-vashoth_ , apostates in their own qunarian way. After the Iron Bull betrayed the Inquisitor, a shadow of mistrust covered the tal-vashoth too, and now they're more known for being cheap swords for hire.

The qunari—the one Sister Cecile shoved out of the orphanage—the next time I see him is after half a year. He plays cards in the company of his fellow men and women in arms, all of them just as tall, grey and horned as he is. Sometimes the table they occupy, which they hauled up on the wall breaking all the rules, bursts out with either argument or friendly jokes—Void only knows what they're talking about in this language of theirs.

I'm old enough to be trusted with the chores, so when I approach them, I ask one of them to move aside so that I could sweep under his legs.

"Ah," the qunari recognizes me, "the bitch."

"My name is Lyna," I mumble under my breath, but more just to say it out loud than in response to him.

"Asnaam," he says and stretches out his huge qunarian hand across the table for a handshake.

My hands grow stiff, and I don't know how to return the gesture. Only adults shake each other's hands, most of them being men at that. I saw boys in the orphanage mimicking them while greeting each other, but I never shook no hands like that.

And still, I gather all my courage to stretch my hand in return.

He grabs it and it just drowns in the bulky paw of his, it being firm and muscular and surprisingly warm. While Asnaam takes his sweet time playfully shaking my hand, he stares at my face.

Oh right. I have a new bruise on my chin, don't I?

"You won at least?" he asks.

"No," I admit and then, with both of my hands, grab the broom handle again.

The other qunari watch me in silence. My understanding is, it's very rare for anybody to just come up and chat with them about anything unrelated to business, and this is why all the attention. Still, nothing happens. Asnaam picks his cards again, and the others follow the example.

I finish swooping the dust and rubbish into a small grey heap and turn to proceed to the tower, where more floors lie waiting for me and my broom, but then, in the corner of my eye, I notice Todd pushing Neville in the yard. My poor kinsman only shrinks and turns around looking for a safe route to escape.

"Asnaam," I say, "you know how to fight, right?"

Without looking up at me, he goes on playing and answers, "Your nanny, Cecile, I believe, forbade me to talk to you about it."

"But it's not you talking to me about it, but _me_ talking to _you_."

Asnaam lifts his gaze. He smiles, but answers, "And also she forbade me teaching you how to fight."

Oh, this Sister Cecile of ours. And oh this qunari who listens to her.

"Well, at least show me then how _not_ to fight."

This time Asnaam puts away his cards, and his playmates turn around examining me with renewed interest. He leaves the table and clumps to me. Near him, even Sister Cecile looked like a petite doll, and me, for all our difference in sizes, I could have been a tiny terrier belonging to Orlesian lady in front of a bear. Asnaam is as good a climbing material as a rock is, it would take just as much effort and time.

"What is this?" he asks, nodding at the swollen front pocket of my apron.

From the top of it, Matilda is peeking out, the veteran of my first fight. Back then, she suffered injuries just as severe as the ones that Rita did, if not worse. The staff-wielding hand is ready to give out any moment; the head is almost torn off, and one of her legs is broken above the supposed knee. I try to always keep her close not as much as to play with her when given opportunity, as for good luck, in case I'll have to fight again.

I blush with shame a little, but I produce her out and say, "Her name is Matilda."

I know great warriors don't have dolls tagging along, but she's a good listener, understanding and never interrupting me ever. Thatched ears are ears, too, and as an elf, I'm not the one to judge her for that. And I also love her a lot.

Asnaam gets down to one knee and takes her from my hands. On the tip of my tongue, there's a plea to please give her back, but I'm not insisting, because if we start tugging her, one, Asnaam would be the winner, and two, we will break her for good. In the huge hands of his, she looks a hundred times more vulnerable. If he squeezes her, she'll turn to hay dust.

I say, "Please, be careful. She was beautiful once, but she's been like this ever since our first fight."

He examines her closely, along with her battle scars and rough stitches on her bagging robe, and asks, "Did you win in your first fight?"

This time I proudly admit, "Yes."

Asnaam hands me the doll back. He says, "It's good you keep her around. Look at her and remember how much you paid for getting into a fight. This, this is your first lesson on how not to fight: don't get into it without weighing the odds. Unlike Matilda, you're not made of thatch. Choose the even opponent."

"The even opponent? But all the kids in the orphanage are older and bigger than me!"

"I did not say that the older and taller opponents are not the even ones."

I don't get it. I keep thinking on his words in case I've misheard or misunderstood something, but they just don't make any sense.

"So how then I'm going to beat them?" I ask.

Asnaam stands up straight, spreads those mountain shoulders of his and says, "That, little kittie, will be on your second lesson."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation is a slow process. As always, any awkward choices of words are purely accidental, and I'd be very grateful if you point them out.


	5. Chapter 5

We drag along the Imperial Highway at a snail pace, accompanied by the crunching of the pale gray snow. Each time the wheels tumble into a road dip, out cart produces a prolonged high-pitched squeak, sounding a lot like a dying animal, sounding a lot like, among us, it's the only thing that was ever given voice. For all the silence we're keeping, we could have been transporting a dead body to burn it on a sacral hill, but instead, behind us, there's only Solas resting in the cart, reading either an ancient tome or the latest novel by master Tethras.

The driver's seat is occupied by me and Amaris. The reins in her golden-brown hands put me in mind of whips, and each time she lashes them, my heart aches with compassion for the horses. We don't have much anything to talk about, her and me. The only things we share are our sex and, probably, the bald passenger behind us. Discussing neither of them sounds like a great idea, so we don't. The kindest thing we could do for each other is saying nothing.

"Have you learned any songs in Skyhold?" asks the bored voice belonging to the most wanted criminal in Thedas behind me.

Breath in, breath out, in and out. Moment by moment, the icy air billows my lungs full bringing peace—or at least its short-lived equivalent. Skyhold, the orphanage, the Inquisitor—recalling all this feels like constantly poking at an own scab with a blunt knife, it's just as painful and useless. Too many times my heart broke within those walls, and too few fond memories I have of the place.

Oh Maker, how I prayed for parents back then.

Why the fuck did you hear me?

Breath in, breath out, in and out.

"Does the Chant of Light count?" I reply at last.

"Anything besides it?"

"Sera Whatever? They sang it a lot in the tavern."

"Be merciful. Anything but it."

Of Halla and Nightingale, Three Pirates, Lovely White Appletree, A Fortress of Thatch—there were quite a lot of songs going around in Skyhold, and I can recite each one of these right on the spot. With some effort, I might even recall a couple of other songs, one telling about a runaway girl and another about a lame mabari.

I reply, "I'm afraid I can't be of any help then."

"I've learned some songs in my youth," says Amaris, finally joining in. To be honest, her Tevinter accent sounds so honey-sweet she doesn't need to sing at all for her voice to become music to someone's ears, the men's especially.

Behind me comes out a chuckle—short, but also warm and tender. 

Solas says, "I know, love."

Love. Just hearing the word feels like I have been eating stale slop for weeks, and the count comes to mind, the one who wanted to choke Skyhold up with his vomit.

I understand him much better now.

When my companions lock themselves up in a bedroom of some roadside inn, instructing me not to disturb them for nothing, all birds flying by almost drop dead with envy—that's how singsongy Amaris is in heat of passion. I never asked for how long they've known each other, but I'm pretty sure her moans collection must be vast enough to fill a couple of thick songbooks.

But Solas doesn't ask her to sing, and Amaris no more reminds of her talents.

The sun is still relatively high when we make a stop at an inn for the night. Clouds up on the sky are all shades of pink and purple, a palette so popular among Orlesian nobility. We could move on, but the freezing mountain wind blows stronger and stronger by the moment, not to mention that we'd have to spend the night surrounded by snow, hungry beasts, and bandits—not the most welcoming company.

Almost all the talking in Tevinter is performed by Amaris. She knows well all the local habits and ways, plus her charisma is ten times that of a normal living being. Before entering, she instructs me in a hushed whisper what is allowed and what is not, biting both of her lips until they turn noticeably red.

"Most of all, don't gawk around much," she says, fluffing up her hair. "And better keep your mouth shut."

The inn hall turns to be not crowded much. The table closest to the entry is occupied by four soldiers in patrol uniforms. Noticing our elven looks, one of them pushes back his chair and approaches us, clanking with metal in his armor. Upon his light silvery chainmail is a black tabard with a coat of arms sewn on it depicting a wild cat holding a snake squirming between its teeth. The coat of arms, it belongs to the Filadis house, who run the whole mountain region. On his belt hangs a sheathed gladis, sometimes sparkling with blue.

He says, "Introduce yourselves."

Amaris tilts her cowl back a little to open a glimpse of her face and short waves of chestnut hair.

"We're on our way to visit my husband's parents. Our brother wrote us they became terribly ill, and we couldn't stay aside."

"Your names, please?"

"My husband, Sheeran," says Amaris, pointing at Solas. Then she puts her hand on my shoulder. "Our daughter, Myrth. And me—"

"I'm not their daughter."

The patrol guard gazes at me, and Amaris jerks her hand back with surprise. 

Solas and her, I can feel them frowning, and then I go, "I'm his daughter alright," I say nodding at Solas. "But not hers."

"There's no need to introduce our protector to our big family drama," says Amaris. "But if you insist."

She lifts her eyes on the soldier and says, impassively, "Her mother had been selling her body for booze, and my husband sheltered her out of pity when he was young. She gave birth to our pretty wonderful Myrth but later returned to the men's attention and the drinking she craved. We still worry that might turn hereditary."

The soldier doesn't question the story further and sets about asking general questions instead. He inquires if we have slave markings on our necks, if we are mages, if we happen to carry any big loads of lyrium. When we're finished, Amaris comes up to the innkeeper, a dark-skinned giant of a man with a linen apron tied to his front, and exchanges coins for a room key.

The room upstairs is barely furnished. Its only bed is for two. I toss my belongings on an armchair and drag the only stool at disposal to the front of it, to create anything remotely looking like a bed. The result leaves much to be desired: judging by the looks of it, I'll either have my arse sagging down all night, or I'll have to curl up in the armchair so tight that, by the morning, I'll become as agile as some old hag who happened to witness Reville the Mad Emperor's reign in Ferelden.

"Solas, tell your girl to stop mucking around," grumbles Amaris taking off her coat. "We're not here for a jolly ride, she should start taking things seriously."

Solas the peacemaker takes off his outerwear and approaches her. I turn back to the armchair, making preparations for the night. Watching them smooching each other's faces up and down is not really my kind of entertainment.

A sharp slapping sound comes from behind, making my ears ring with pain. I whirl around to see Solas grabbing Amaris by the arm, her brown cheek now dark red with a distinct print of a palm. 

He says, "You better think twice next time you decide to speak ill of Ellana. I've hurt her. What stops me from doing the same to you?"

Amaris's face turns crimson with anger, and her pretty lips twist in a feral scowl. 

"Don't be a fool," she says. "I'm your right hand, your Divine, your High Priestess if you like. She, she has been our enemy since the beginning. Hardly there's anybody else in Thedas who wants to see your head cut off more than she does. And if you touch me, you will lose a part of your army and I won't go down without a fight."

Solas pulls her closer and says, barely audible, "If I touch you, there will be no fight. And speaking of the army, I gathered it without your help."

I grab my money purse and head to the doorway as usual. My cheeks and neck are burning hot and my knees are melting wax as if I did something. I don't care if they want to fuck each other to death or to simply kill each other—they better lock themselves up somewhere for this kind of shit or at least be well out of my eyesight.

"Lyna."

I freeze.

Solas says, "Take my half of the bed. I'll be the one sleeping in the chair."

Holding his head up high, he walks out of the room without glancing back either at Amaris or me. Amaris, she stands still, humiliated and angry, and, by the looks of it, hating the universal injustice. Her knuckles are this close to outshine the snow outside in their whiteness, and the blaze in her eyes reminds me of the times I met rage demons.

I say, "Don't worry. If it means anything, my opinion is he'll cool off pretty soon and say how sorry he is he hit you."

Amaris doesn't even lift her gaze at me. She digs around in her back and produces a thick book. She ignites a flickering flame over her index finger and says, "Your opinion is nothing."

I go downstairs and then outside for a moment. The sun has already slid down behind the mountain range, and clouds up high are a dimmed milky cover obscuring the stars and the most of the moon disc. Solas is nowhere to be seen, but judging by the howl, he's not far, scouting around or maybe just letting steam off.

Another day of our travel comes to an end, and I'm a step closer to dying.


	6. Chapter 6

I'm cleaning northern quarters of Skyhold, the ones comprising a stable, a modest smithery shed built onto it, and servants' rooms, generally vacant because of the prevalent funk. The sun is overdoing its job roasting us mercilessly up, and the crazy folks come to mind who pilgrimage to the Inquisitor all the way from the Orlesian University, waving about their so-called researches; the sun, they claim, is heating Thedas hotter and hotter with each age, and soon we all will dry into a raisin-like state.

Not sure about the whole Thedas, but a bit more of this, and I'm definitely turning into a raisin.

I'm armed with a shovel and a sack: one for the things no one in their right mind would touch bare-handed even if under threat, the other for trash. When it comes to the stable and uncle Cianan, trash almost always means bottles.

I pick up a slender dark-green wine bottle, left forgotten right in the doorway to the kingdom of the Inquisitor's mounts. A dark beverage drop solitarily orbits in the bottom, pink and ruby when light passes through it. If you smell the bottleneck, it will feel like you've discovered where goes all the fruit waste, leftovers from important guests' tables. Drinking this is beyond my comprehension.

With his sleeves rolled above his elbows, uncle Cianan combs one of the three horses' mane with a brush. He hums a melody that sounds Dalish. His swollen face beams with morning vigor, and if I didn't know all the details of life in Skyhold, I would have never believed he spent yesterday night drinking and embodying everything the Chantry sisters warn us against.

To be honest, Skyhold stable is less of a stable than what's called a menagerie. Only three out of seven mounts are horses, the other four being two harts, a spotted dracolisk, and a nuggalope, whose face reminds of Adnan's expression when someone tries to explain him how calculus works. On a special occasion though, the menagerie population grows larger by uncle Cianan himself: even if you forgive him his muttering, he'll still be walking--or rather staggering--on all fours. Sister Regine once even suggested to him moving his bed into a pen.

Inside the stable, I find another bottle, its shape a miniature pumpkin with a bottleneck attached. The glass is almost opaque with old smears and dirt, and no one can tell for sure now if it was ever see-through at all. If you smell the bottleneck, it will feel like horses use it for target practice when they make their bowel movements.

And to be honest, to me it's just as appealing as the previous bottle.

Uncle Cianan's tendency to hit the bottle time and again is a widely known fact. I don't even know why do they keep him in Skyhold--not for his exemplary behavior, that's a sure one--but some say the Inquisitor noticed once that riding her saddle hart after his care felt like soar not gallop, and uncle Cianan got rooted firmly in the fortress since then.

It's not like we're friends or anything, it's just that now and then every elf kid from the orphanage comes to the stable to have a good cry. It was him to whom beaten-up Neville came crawling; in his arms, a wallflower of a Rosaly sought comfort; and even I vent to him about rigors of living among boys and girls of Skyhold. Honestly, it's surprising how he manages to wedge drinking into his routine of listening to our whine and doing his stable-related job.

Sometimes, in response to our whining, he says something silly, like "Steel is mold in fire," or "Brilliants are born under gigantic bulks of mountains," or even "A solid rock pays no attention to an ant," but sometimes, with a bottle at his lips already, he just grumbles, "Smack'em back harder then." That's all there is about uncle Cianan. He puts on an act of a wise venerable elder, while in reality he's just a drunkard.

I'm seven and I'm showing off my new inky black bruise like it's a war trophy. I have already served my time in the corner and received a due number of canes. In the meantime, the other kids are happily downing the dinner which misbehaving me didn't deserve, and so I come over to him to pass the time.

The bottle in his hands is half-empty already.

There's a flask hanging round uncle Cianan's neck, its shape that of a big quaint egg. Its glossy milky-green shell glints with intricate filigree pattern, and I ask, "Uncle Cianan, why do you need a flask around your neck if you're drinking from the bottle all the time anyway?"

He fixates on the funny flask of his, caressing its features, and smiles. He says, "This is for when I finish all of my bottles."

I see why the Chantry sisters dislike him so much: they think his example is bad for children, so we better not stick around him for long unless we want to hear out dull neverending lectures about harms of the drinks we're not allowed to do yet.

"The alcohol," says sister Regine, "makes one's head sick and turns everyone--be they a human, an elf, a dwarf or even a qunari--into an animal."

"Magic can turn anyone into an animal, too," Fat Girl Louise chips in. "But we still learn its basics."

By the 'basics' she means the easy stuff--about the Fade, the dreams, the smooth whispers promising riches of the world, everyone's love, or a stuffed toy pony. This all is a preventative measure aimed to identify a mage among us as fast as possible until they wreak havoc by accident. If I'm not mistaken, only four lucky bastards were sent into Circle, and me--however intense I tried to listen to the silence when everyone fell asleep--all I ever heard was snorting that came from around the beds and mice scraping somewhere in the basement.

Speaking of dreams, it's not much different, I guess. I see my dead parents, our home, with the yard, the garden, and a gray behemoth of a cat. I see Skyhold and everyone calls me the Inquisitor, and the orphanage kids don't even dare to lift their eyes at me. And sometimes I see my parents being actually alive but not wanting to take me back in simply because of my knife-ears.

Sometimes, in a dream, the sky turns pitch black with ruby stars sparkling up on it; then, by the morning, I'll decide that secretly eating snacks at night isn't the healthiest of ideas. Sister Regine says that all nightmares come from them.

"Hey, Lyna," says uncle Cianan, briefly pausing from brushing the horse.

"Hello."

The horse--if I remember correctly, it's Equinor's cousin or something--snorts with jealousy and, shaking its dark glossy mane, stretches its muzzle under the brush, almost forcing uncle Cianan to return to the tending.

Right from under a feeding rack of an empty pen, I pick up another bottle. Rougher than the previous couple, it's asymmetrical, made of reddish ceramics, lumpy as if swollen from being kept under water for too long. I'd say it once was used to store beer or ale in it, but if you smell its bottleneck, then--oh sweet Maker!--it will feel like hundreds of mice generations have been choosing it as their common grave.

None of the Chantry sisters' lectures about harms of alcohol will ever top cleaning the stables.

And yet, what I wouldn't give right now to get a hold of a stronger drink. It may smell with stale fruits, horses' feces a week old, or uncleaned mousetrap--I don't really care if it will calm me down.

Instead, as if mocking me, lady Charter hands me a wooden cup with water splashing in it. My hands are tied together fast with thick ropes, and I have no idea how to grip at the offering without taking the risk of spilling the water all over myself.

Turns out, the interrogation room is dank enough as it is.

The head investigator of Skyhold takes a sip herself and then, in a hammily careful manner, places the deathroot vial right in front of me. Tiny and black, it looks almost innocent--or at least, not dangerous enough to claim three lives in a go.

Charter asks, "What is this?"

I say nothing. More than ever I envy every noble dog right now: according to an ordinance passed by the Divine, they have a right to keep silence without an advocate, a person trained to answer all the inconvenient questions, and in such a manner that you'll have to apologize to the whole family later at that. These nobs can get handsy all they want, they can spit offenses left and right, they can even plot schemes, but the Inquisition nonetheless will respect them as the law dictates them to.

The law says nothing about any poor orphans.

Across the table, on the second chair in front of me, sits the Inquisitor herself. She's still wearing the same undone coat and the same damp shirt, but this time her face betrays no sign of pining or any other form of sentimentality. She stares holes into me steepling her hands--the picture that must have been seen by numerous elves before me.

A bit further away from her and lady Charter, stand two men. If I remember correctly the meaning behind the insignia of a broken sword on their breastplates, they are warriors of the Templar Order, now disbanded. The goal of their presence here is obvious: these tough champions of the just will deter any attempt of a suspect to cast a fireball or to summon a demon or to turn anybody into a bug. They don't care if a suspect--me, at the present--can't do any magic. They must be prepared for any kinds of surprises.

Charter answers her own question instead of me.

"This is a vial with traces of poison in the bottom. We have found it in the orphanage, right under your pillow."

My tongue turns to wood, but I manage to say, "I was set up."

Charter sneers. She repeats, "Set up? An unwanted plain orphan like you--set up? Pray tell me, who and why did that?"

"Tevinter agents," I mumble. My voice is a coarse whine, but Charted makes it out.

"Oh, really now? And you have someone to put your finger on?"

Alright, I didn't plan that far. I fall silent again. The pause stretches painfully long, and the Inquisitor speaks up finally.

"He has recruited you in person, hasn't he?"

I have no idea who's she talking about.

"You've got the wrong person," I say almost by instinct. "Yes, the vial is mine, I've found it when I was cleaning one of the guests' bedrooms, but I have no hand in poisoning the barrels."

Lady Lavellan stands up and moves round the table before sitting down on a corner of it in front of my nose. Her face is obscured by shadow, and the only things I make out are the cat-like glints of her irises.

"Who taught you the Elven speech?" she asks in a threatening whisper.

In all my life, I've heard two or maybe three words in Elven, and I long since forgot their meaning at that. I still have no idea what she's saying. 

I say, "No one did. I speak only the common tongue."

Charter's fist comes down slamming the table, and the deathroot vial springs up on the table breaking into a reel. She shouts, "You're lying! When we found you among the bottles filled with poison, you spoke no common tongue at all! You were jabbering in Elven so well any Dalish would worship you! They dedicate their whole lives to restore shreds of their language, but in just ten seconds you blabbered out more Elven words than the Inquisitor taught me ever! Speak, who's your agent."

Lady Lavellan adds in, "If you ever had one of course."

She and lady Charter, they exchange glances with each other. There's a silent dialogue going on, well clear for the participants, and then Charter addresses the former templars, "Call for ser Rutherford to come down here and leave."

They bow and then make their leave, one after the other, and as soon as the door behind them closes shut, lady Lavellan leans over me and says, "He visited you in your dreams, didn't he? Maybe he promised you his love and care, but remember: it's not his roof you have lived under and it's not his hands that have been feeding you. He never loved you and never ever will--he doesn't even know what it means to love. He just wants to use you like he did with the Inquisition only to forget you later as if you no longer existed. Speak. What do you know?"

Whose love and care, again? None of her words make any sense. Taking part in my own interrogation would have been easier if I remembered how they found me. There are fragments in my memory of how I was hurting and hiding from something--definitely not from the investigators' hounds--and when I heard familiar human voices I called to them. I begged and cried and tried to explain the fear, but received only a club blow on the head instead. Then I woke up in the interrogation room.

Try as I might, there are no memories of any bottles filled with poison.

For the sake of showing my sincere involvement and care about the investigation, I assume, "The 'he' you speak of, is it apostate Solas? Are you talking about him?"

Lady Lavellan's hand jolts up for a slap, and I instinctively duck and cringe. The blow does not follow. She is flash frozen in the pose, as if under a spell, and stares down at me with her eyes bulged out.

The door opens and ser Rutherford comes in.

"Ellana," he says dispraisingly as he notices her posture. "Put your hand down, for the Maker's sake!"

A moment passes by, then another, and then lady Lavellan follows her husband's will. Without uttering a sound, looking downcast and pensive now, she turms to lady Charter again. And again they talk to each other without saying anything out loud. Charter nods then turns and passes by ser Rutherford to the exit.

"I'll be outside if you need me," she says and closes the door behind her.

There's only three of us left.

"Lyna, how much do you know about your parents?" asks the Inquisitor. "And look me in the eyes when you answer."

I lift my gaze at her and recite a quote I learned a long time ago, "My parents were taken by the war with a darkspawn, the Corypheus."

Sir Rutherford comes closer and comfortingly places his hand on his wife's shoulder. She covers it with hers and squeezes gently.

"Thank you for being here," she says in a barely audible whisper and kisses his fingers.

They smile to each other, somewhat weary, somewhat sad, and then lady Lavellan jumps down from the table. The inquisitorial couple settles across the table in front of me.

"Have you ever wondered why, if both of your parents died during the war with Corypheus, you were born three years after it had ended? Have you ever wondered why you were the last child taken in by the orphanage? Have you ever heard the rumors that apostate Solas and me... that apostate Solas..." her voice is fading away like a flickering candle flame about to blow out, and then she covers her face with her hand. "Cullen," she exhales, "I can't."

Sir Rutherford squeezes her other hand and then addresses me, "Lyna," he says. "Have you ever heard any rumors regarding the Inquisitor's and apostate Solas's... relationship?"

I, I don't like where this is going a bit. I don't like my knife-ears being evidence that both of my parents were elves. I don't like the Inquisitor's being an elf. I don't like apostate Solas's being an elf as well. I turn sick at the tough that, in theory--purely in theory--they could have brought forth any children.

Conceiving the next thought is more than I can handle.

Overcoming a lump in my throat, I reply, "No."

Lady Lavellan opens her mouth, but I cut in before her, "My parents were taken by the war with a darkspawn. The Corypheus."

Lady Lavellan makes a second attempt, but once more I am faster than her.

"And speaking of my age, the Chantry sisters must have simply done a sloppy job of inscribing me into their accounting book. This just means I'm a couple of years older than I thought."

I say, "My parents are long dead. And I highly doubt they are going to resurrect all of a sudden."

I wipe my eyes with the rough ropes, and a dark wet smear appears on them. Again, I'm thirsty for the horse piss that adults call beer.

"Lyna," says lady Lavellan. "I didn't know what to do with you. I didn't even know what kind of creature I would give birth to."

All this is insane, a weird bad dream I can't wake up from. I say the first thing that comes to mind.

"Pregnancy can be aborted, is it not?"

She takes a pause and then confesses, "I tried it."

Sir Rutherford bursts, "Ellana! She's only twelve!"

"And she deserves the truth already."

Just like many years ago, a blurry mist clouds my vision, and I repeat, "This isn't true. Nothing of what you've told is true."

Back then, the rumors about her romantic relationship with Solas, says the Inquisitor, were still fresh, and there was no need for an investigation to determine the fatherhood. The Divine managed to talk her out of getting rid of the fetus--of me. She had promised lady Lavellan that the latter will be able to give birth without anyone's prying eyes and ears, but the Inquisitor had to leave Skyhold for half a year.

Lady Lavellan has a whole novel in store for me. She yammers on, "Don't misunderstand me. Back then I thought Solas was simply a man who went astray and turned whole Thedas against himself. I wanted to save him, I truly did, but no one would have let me do it with his baby in my hands. I gave you up to strangers for your own father's sake.

She says, "And I didn't just ditch you either. I started the orphanage only so that I could look out for you. Surely, I had no right to single you out from all the other children with my attention. And merely implying fostering you was out of option, too."

My gaze shifts from her to sir Rutherford and back to her again. They and their cute little boy, such an immaculate family they are. There could have never been a place for Solas's daughter among them. There could have never been a place for her in a vast castle, in a spacious bedroom, among tutors and tailors fluttering around her to take her measures for a new gown of golden silk or red velvet. There could have never been a place for her at the table where they serve meat every day, she would have looked silly reading books on astrology, magic, or history. Her showing manners of a noble lady would have turned the Inquisition into a joke. Bathing several times a week would have been regarded as a senseless waste of water.

My heart bleeds with lady Lavellan's mercy.

"I knew you have troubles in the orphanage. I could have given you up to another family, farther away from Skyhold, but that would have meant parting with you. I did all this because I loved you," she says pitifully raising corners of her eyebrows, and oh sweet Maker how I want to believe her.

The one who loves will never hurt the loved one just because they don't want them to leave.

"So I'm asking you again," she says. "Did he recruit you in person? Was it him who taught you the Elvhen speech?"

I manage to grab the half-empty cup of water and splash it over lady Lavellan. I jerk up from the chair, screaming, "Bitch! You're a knife-ear bitch, that's who you are! You knew everything, right? You knew everything all this time and never did a thing! Oh, how much easier it was to love you when you were dead!"

Lady Lavellan jumps upright like a scolded cat, shaking the water off herself to no avail. Stressed enough as she was, now she looks truly miserable.

The only thing I'm sorry about is I have splashed her with water not a bucket of pig blood.

She marches up to me in long vehement strides and pulls me up by my neck with startling force.

"You're forgetting yourself, Lyna of the orphanage. Maybe I did give birth to you, but to you, I'm still the Inquisitor."

These words bring me surprisingly more comfort than I expected. At least something in this crumbling world of mine is still intact.

She says, "Answer the question: who recruited you? Why you were found in the cellar among the poison bottles? How did you learn Elven? Ma harellin! What did I just say?"

I say Solas has never contacted me. I don't remember how I got to be among the bottles with poison. She might question me all she likes until sunrise, but my answers won't change.

Sir Rutherford clears his throat and says, "Maybe we could take a break?"

"A break?" she repeats. "Cullen, we have bodies! Three guests were killed inside our walls! Gaspard's nephew is among them! Lady de Chevinne is one foot in the grave! I can't exit this room without having anyone to put my finger on! The Divine's personal guard had no right to let this happen!"

The Inquisitor grabs me by the neck and tosses me onto the chair. She leans in so close I can feel her damp clouds of breath.

"Lyna, you're either telling me all you have or tomorrow I drag you up to the gallows in person."

Thank you, Maker, for sir Rutherford: once again he interrupts the questioning. He comes closer to her, carefully pulls her away by her shoulders and then turns her around to face him.

"Ellana," he whispers, "come to your senses. You were in the exact same situation, remember? You couldn't recall how you got out of the Fade, and people blamed you in the Divine's death. Everyone doubted you, except for Solas maybe, but back then, you didn't even know whom to turn to for help."

"Back then we made it through only thanks to the rumors about the Herald of Andraste. What should we say now? Should we say that this is the Maker's punishment for his children diverging off the righteous path? Would anybody believe that? Would anybody believe an Inquisitor with knife-blast-them-ears?"

I say, "So cut them fucking off."

A slap lands so hard it feels like setting half of my face on fire. From the corner of my eye, I notice sir Rutherford wanted to interfere again but changed his mind.

"Lyna," he says, "this is neither the right time nor place for showing how snarky you are. Try to remember why you were among bottles with poison."

Someone knocks on the door. A face peeks inside, round and feminine, set too low to belong to a human or an elf. Massive goggles are perching up on her forehead, with smudged glass and a wooden mask of a frame, and a beard-like kerchief is hanging below her lips, gray from fusty soot. 

"Dagna," lady Lavellan greets the woman. "What do you have?"

The dwarf woman beckons her over with a gesture, and the Inquisitor hesitantly leaves the room, not before giving me a final glare.

I strain my hearing. They're discussing the poison from my vial. The dwarf says she's betting my sample is too old, outdated, and it could have caused a case of upset stomach at worst. The poison from the bottles, on the other hand, is quite new, around three months old only.

Sir Rutherford opens his mouth at a bad time, and I put my index finger to my lips trying to make an expression of a puppy hungry for a piece of pork. He lets me be.

In comparison to apostate Solas, he really must be one wonder of a husband.

"I'm not asserting, but it's highly likely that Lyna just picked a wrong toy to play with," says this Dagna.

"A toy to play with?" lady Lavellan repeats with a mirthless chuckle. "Did she, what, want to see what would happen if she poisons someone with the substance from a curious and foul vial?"

"Well, yes?" half-answers and half-asks the dwarf woman. "I remember when I was her age, I have been messing with runes. Burned my father's workshop a couple of times, and one time I frostbit aunt Nix's leg: she stepped onto a wrong place at the wrong time." 

They stay silent for some time.

"Even if the poison samples aren't of the same origin, what was she doing in that cellar?" lady Lavellan asks.

"I'm afraid I can't be of any help in this matter. My knack is alchemy. If you need a more detailed description, the deathroot poison smells like, well, like death. Like a not too fresh corpse, so to speak. Like decay in blossom. What this girl's vial smells of though is stale blood, and not distinctively at that.

Decay in blossom. Cadaveric smell. The bottles.

That motherfucking Cianan.

"It's the stableman!" I shout jumping off the chair with surprise. "Lady Lavellan, it's the stableman!"

The door flings wide open the same moment. Lady Lavellan once more marches at me with the determination of an arrow shot, and, once stopped, asks, "So you remember now?"

"No," I admit. "But his bottles, uncle Cianan's bottles, often smelled like dead mice. Maybe he was distilling the deathroot extract into them or, I don't know, was keeping it in them?"

She exchanges glance with sir Rutherford and then sags down into her chair. If she is any happy with the breakthrough, she hides it behind a mask of weariness. No one budges an inch. Neither the inquisitorial couple nor standing in the doorway Charter nor Dagna.

"What's wrong?" I ask. "Why aren't you off to get him?"

"Because Cianan has been our suspect since almost the beginning of the investigation," says lady Lavellan. 

She falls silent, then adds, "And because he has already managed to slip away."

I up my hands roped together, "So, the Inquisitor, that means I can go now, right?"

She casts a sullen glance at me and then says, "No."

She says, "The last person seen with him was you."

She says, "And I still need someone to put my finger on."

Dagna leaves first, followed by Charter. Sir Cullen stands up and helps lady Lavellan to do the same.

"Meaning?" I ask. "What do you mean?"

Without saying a word, they turn doorwise, leaving me farther behind with each step.

"Wait! But I didn't do anything!"

I haul up on my feet and chase after them, but too late: the door heavily closes shut right before my nose, almost hitting me in the forehead.

"Hey!" I'm pounding with my hands tied together, like a savage doing his best at throwing stones down upon his enemies. "Lady Lavellan, I didn't do anything!"

Only the clicks in the keyhole reply me instead.

"You can't leave me here! Mother, you can't leave me here!"

I pound and pound and pound, but the door doesn't open a slight. I hear a muffled voice belonging to the Inquisitor saying, "Whatever happens, don't leave your post. And, oh yes, she has gone a little mad over there, hallucinating and all, so please try not to pay any attention to that."

The room starts spinning, and my legs turn into a cotton-like state. I, a daughter of the Inquisitor and apostate Solas, am soon going to be convicted for the crime I didn't commit, and I can't do anything about it.

Still, I have lied about not speaking the Elvhen language. Ma harellin. Laugh at the irony of that, but this bitch called me a liar.

What troubles me is I have never spoken it until today.


	7. Chapter 7

My friendship with Fat Girl Louise started off with heresy--or more like, with accusations of it. She believes that the real culprit was the sunny weather that wore down everyone in the Chantry classroom, but what I think is if lessons of that hag Sister Regine hadn't been boring to death, nothing would have happened.

Like tortured captives, we sit quietly on the second floor of the orphanage, which for some reason stays always plunged in darkness no matter how wide you open the windows or how many candles you light. Before, it was hard to accommodate all the children because there wasn't enough room, and classes had to be split, but now, majority of the children grew up and half of the classroom is empty. We're seated one by one, and now, when it becomes extremely boring, I can't elbow my neighbor to point at a butcher chasing a pig that has broken loose or at a new stallion, that was gifted to the Inquisitor, being tamed by uncle Cianan. There's nothing in front of me except for the long and mournful printed Chant of Light, by which I am taught how to read, and I, a young victim to the Chantry rules, can only moan and silently pray the Maker for a quick death.

First, Sister Regine reads several strophes herself, and then we are to repeat after her, one after another. While I sit here waiting for my turn to open my mouth, I swear, a new Blight might as well come and go--that's how torpidly Sister Regine reads each and every line and that's how sluggishly other children's tongues wade through strophes of the Chant. This isn't reading, this is torture.

I covertly shield behind a sheet with the Chant and let my head sink down on the table. Simone has only just finished reading something about a formless and everchanging realm, and Sister Regine says, "Adnan, you go on."

Oh merciful Maker, why?

Adnan is the kind of boy who needs three good attempts to finish reading just one word alone. With his voice stammering in the background, I decide to close my eyes for a while, and when I open them I see a tall red and white figure of Sister Regine looming over me. I jolt upright to see the class laughing at me--some hide their snickering grimaces behind the Chant, and some jeer openly, not any ashamed of demonstrating their toothless mouthes for all to see.

Fat Girl Louise, face beet red and fists tight, stands in the corner, frowning at Sister Regine. Her curly red hair, which she usually combs into a neat ponytail, is a messy birdnest around the right temple. Before I can ask what happened, Sister Regine drags me up by my ear and hauls me into the same corner. The burning clip that follows makes me a similar hairdo and answers my question to the hilt, so to speak.

As I would learn later, Fat Girl Louise fell asleep during the class, too.

Sister Regine inhales deep preparing to lash at us, and me and Louise, we exchange glances full of mutual understanding. Sister Regine starts screaming and yelling so loud that this time, it's not us peeking into the window to see what's happening in the yard, but the whole Skyhold yard gathering at the orphanage and trying to peer into the second-floor window instead. They're probably thinking that we're tormenting some poor squeaky hen, shaking their heads in disapproval, imagining just how scampish we will all grow up.

"Falling asleep during a class!" Sister Regine bewails, tiny drops of her spit spraying on top of us. "Moreover, falling asleep while reading the Chant of Light! Unbelievable!"

She says, "Now, if it were some arithmetics of yours in question, I would have understood it! But the Chant of Light!.."

Fat Girl Louise, the well-meaning girl she is, explains, "But one does need arithmetics to craft armor by schematics. Swords, too. Even to build castles as well. Dagna said so."

"Are you saying then you don't need the Chant of Light? Are you?"

The mood in the classroom shifts in an instant. Sister Regine's question hangs in the air like a heavy cloud about to strike anyone with its righteous lightning bolt, and Fat Girl Louise, gulping, stammers out an answer, "But you can't... craft any armor with it."

"Maker, why?" Sister Regine moans at the ceiling before glaring back at us again. "One is a heretic, dogging that Dagna!" she clamors, pointing at Louise with her reverent finger. "As if this Dagna of yours knew a whole lot! She graced the Chantry with her presence only just twice! First, when she asked to bless her marriage to that knife-ear bandit girl, and second, when she then later asked to dissolve it! Such disrespect!" Then Sister Regine stabs me with her attention. "And the other is a knife-ear rebel! Neglecting the Chant, sleeping in class! What, do you want to become an apostate now? To leave for this Solas's pack and copulate with beasts there? Disgusting!"

To be honest, I don't want to leave for the Solas's pack at all and I'm not sure what the word 'copulate' means, but I guess it must mean something really bad. I say nothing and stare into the floor.

Sister Regine dismisses the class, murmuring over and over that we, bloodsuckers, wore her out completely. She collects all the sheets with the Chant and orders us to stand in the corner, and, when everyone else has left, locks the door behind her. Me and Fat Girl Louise, we're left all alone.

I know about Fat Girl Louise but two things. First, kids mock her a fat girl because she grows too slow in height and too fast in width. Second, her victories rate is far better than mine. I once saw her, a squat shorty, bearing a hand in hauling hefty barrels in the yard, so it doesn't come as a surprise that she, with her trunks of arms, is a less likely prey to jeering than me.

I am the first to leave the post prematurely. I settle on the nearest bench and ask, "This Dagna, what else does she tell you?"

The question alone is enough to wipe the frown off her face, lightening her up. She loosens her hair down to scrape them together and then make a ponytail anew and says, "Oh, actually a whole goodly lot, she does! She tells a lot about magic, about Skyhold in the beginning, back when everyone thought apostate Solas was here to help. She shows how to craft hilts for swords and daggers and what the difference between them is."

Fat Girl Louise sits beside me and, eyes wide with excitement, tells me about the first conspiracy in Skyhold when several ancient tomes dating back to Elvhenan disappeared from the library. Back then, she says, it turned out that Fen'Harel's wolves had been smuggling them one by one through an eluvian which everyone thought was broken.

She continues, "And the library in question is not that round one, but another, which is closed now. Books were stored in there, people say, long before the Inquisition settled here. And speaking of the round one, its first floor was occupied by Solas himself!"

I've been to Skyhold keep only a few times, so it's hard to imagine yet what exactly Fat Girl Louise's talking about, and this must be why I pretty much soon forget about this big and dark secret.

She tells everything Dagna said for quite a time. She boasts how the dwarf woman has even asked the chamberman not to assign another kid to the inner smithery and promised to mentor Fat Girl Louise.

When we change the topic to bullies and discuss who of them deserves a stronger kick in the arse than the rest, she tells me, "When they call you a knife-ear, they actually don't know what they speak of. In ancient times, humans called elves knife-ears out of fear."

"Meaning," I say, "they call me really scary?"

Louise replies, "No."

She says, "They call you very powerful."

The thing is, Louise continues, Elven gift of magic was so supreme that pissing them off meant devastating one's whole community--everyone, men and women, old and young, indiscriminately and no questions raised.

I say, "Wish I could devastate a community each time someone spat at my back."

I thank her for the story, but when they call me a knife-ear the very same evening, it still feels like a stab. They could have called me an apple tree or a statue or even a queen instead, but the tone of these little shits' voices and their expression would have turned anything into a mockery.

And of course, I devastate no community in retaliation.

My opponents disperse, leaving me alone on the grass, with my pride beaten-up as bad as my right knee--the price I paid for letting them grab my hair. Moreover, I caught a fist with my cheekbone, meaning I'll be walking with a swollen up face for two more days, a better joke than my ears alone.

Fat Girl Louise approaches me and stretches out her huge hand to me. Helping me up to stand on the beaten leg, she asks, "When are you turning sixteen?"

Trying not to wince with pain in her presence, I make calculations and say, "In around nine years. It would take a whole life to get there. Why?"

She replies, "Girls' growing slows down when around that age. If Dagna will indeed mentor me, remind me beforehand, alright?"

"But why?" I repeat.

"I'll make brass knuckles for you."

Our friendship grows stronger when the orphanage becomes overcome with grief. Rosaly, the silent girl almost the same age as me, up and vanishes. Whole Skyhold seeks her, people call her in every corner of the fortress, but to no avail. The Inquisitor is visiting Ferelden, so all the decisions regarding the search are made by the investigator Charter. Her dogs storm our orphanage, barking loud, they sniff Rosaly's pillow and blankets up and down, and then sprint onto the wall, circling and trailing every stone with their noses.

Back in the orphanage, Sister Cecile tells me before bed, "Lyna, whatever happens, don't talk to anyone. Stick to Louise and stay put."

She hurriedly dons a grey woolen cloak on top of her habit, preparing to join the search that has stretched up to dusk, and asks, "The qunari, how much has he taught you?"

I say, "He taught me how to run away. And how to swing a stick if necessary."

She nods, satisfied, and says, "All right. But just in case, don't approach him and don't talk to him either until we find Rosaly."

If I would have followed the instruction to the letter, I'd had to hide from Asnaam and give him silent treatment up to this day, because in the end, Rosaly is never found.

Did she ever mention anything about running away from the orphanage, they ask. Did she ever complain someone had offended her or was threatening to offend her? Almost all the elven children have grumbled about something at least once, them having here enough or someone casting them sidelong looks too often. But the truth is Rosaly wasn't one of them. In fact, she didn't belong to anyone who ever said anything at all.

Fat Girl Louise stays silent the whole week of the searches. She no longer tells me what new she has learned from Dagna, she doesn't boast with how much she knows about molding metal. During lunch, she eats with no appetite, and it looks as if she were forcing her teeth to chew and grind and then swallowing with effort. In the evenings, she doesn't leave my side for a minute, and she accompanies me to the latrine constantly glancing back over her shoulder as if someone was at our heels. Around bedtime, she asks me to lie in her bed because, she says, she's too scared. And then, a whole week of grieving after the Chantry sisters, dressed in black, cross out Rosaly's name from the orphanage accounting book, she whispers me one night, "I know what happened to Rosaly."

She tells no details and begs me to keep it secret. She looks so scared that, to be honest, I'm not quite dying to learn all the details while convincing myself that Rosaly is actually doing well right now, that she has left to Briala's marquisate to become a noble lady there and Louise's shivering with fear because she imagined Maker only knows what. Poor thing cries silently, not saying a word, and all I can do is hug her and promise I won't tell anyone.

The next day, a message arrives into Skyhold. Fen'Harel has declared war.

So, when you're nine, you're not making a great job putting figurative two and two together--yet. But when you're twelve, and when you spend an eternity in the cell after being told that you can't be an orphan of the war with Corypheus because of the two years long mismatch, you have to ask yourself, "The fuck? Rosaly was less than a year older than me! What the fuck happened to her four years ago?"

"Do you really want to know that?" someone asks me.

I gasp with surprise and palm my mouth shut. Have I just forgotten myself and asked the question aloud without realizing it?

I look around. The cell in front of me is occupied by a sleeping foreigner from Tevinter, if I remember correctly. To the right from him, a beardless redhead dwarf sits on the floor, hunched over his bent knees. He's so still he might as well have gone dead without anyone noticing. The rest five cells are empty. In any case, the waterfall is roaring so loud under us we'd have to yell to reach each other. Speaking of my cell, it's the rear one, with only one adjacent cell. 

Leaning my ear against our only common wall, I ask, "Who are you?"

A whisper reaches me, a rustle of the leaves. "Do you really want to know that as well?"

It's a male voice for sure, but no matter how close I press my ear against the wall, out comes an even hush as if this someone got deep into my ear, almost touching it with his lips. Feels disgusting. I jerk back and, more out of fear than of wanting to be heard, scream at the wall, "Who are you? Answer me! What do you know about Rosaly? Where is she?"

From the cell across, comes out a bark with a northern accent, "Oi shut up, stupid knife-ear! Let me sleep, would you!"

I answer him, "You shut up! I'm trying to talk to my neighbor here!"

The vint turns around, glances at us, and then yells back, "Blasted! Did you let a demon posses you or something?"

He says, "Your neighbor cell is empty!"


	8. Chapter 8

According to One-Eyed Sera, my childhood was bound to be unhappy just as any nob is bound to stick to their arrogance and shit. She says, "I'm not sayin' this to offend you or anythin'. I just want you to stop moanin' on your life bein' a bitch is all."

One-Eyed Sera, a living legend of a bandit since around she was a sprout, teaches me essential life skills on how to play a lousier pawk on someone. These were her words, _a lousier pawk_ , and when I, before my first lesson, asked her what does a pawk mean, she explained, "A pawk is a thingy that, if thrown on somethin', can set it ablaze or frostbite it or pierce it through with nails."

Tek-neek-ally, she said, a pawk is only rarely being played. Instead, most often, it's being planted under someone's arrogant arse, say, on a chair or a sofa. In other cases, a pawk can be stretched, set, mixed in, slipped in, inserted into, smudged around, or simply sent—she listed such a lengthy number of options that I thought it will take a lifetime to only just memorize them all.

"What's more," she added, livening up, "a pawk can unleash a swarm of pissed off bees on some fucker, and believe me, you won't wanna miss that. One day I'll teach it to you, too." 

Today, according to Sera, is the day.

In the foothill of the neverending Frostback mountains, summer has finally come around, and the whole week the Maker casts us blithely sunny weather. Walking beneath an open sky is a bliss all by itself, especially after long months of drifting from cave to cave. Even the buzz and whiz of the insects that have starved through winter for warm blood can't change it.

One would think it wouldn't hurt to sneak away from the lessons to have some fun splashing in the river, but One-Eyed Sera isn't the right kind of person to test one's luck with. I've seen in person her chopping off fingers of young girls, who, according to Lame-Legged Nora, have crossed her but not bad enough to cut their fingers off. I don't want to provoke such a short-tempered bandit by any means, so I obediently trail after her in the maple forest, looking under my feet to have my way clear of poisonous plants or nettles.

Discussing my life further, she continues, "You're not sulkin' at a storm for just happenin', no?"

I can't tell if that's a question or some unfinished thought of hers, but just to fill in the pause, I say, "Uh-uh."

"So stop moping about her not admitting you. My opinion is if you have no control over somethin', then it's not worth being all over on tenterhooks about it."

Moreover, she continues, I should put myself in the inquisitorial shoes for a bit.

One-Eyed Sera stops and places her palm flat against above her eyebrows and cocks her head up. She's looking for a bee tree, a tree with a hollow occupied by a numerous bee family. The tree hollow should be set low enough for us to climb it without risking breaking our necks.

Still looking around for the fitting tree, she says, "Imagine you're fallin' in love with someone so bad you can't imagine a life without him. And then, he, the love of your life, says you without actually explainin' anythin', like, it's not you it's me. You're bawlin' your eyes out night after night, you pester him askin' what did you do wrong and how can you make up for it, and then, after the official reason you two got together is gone—or, as it was with Cory, defeated—he just goes and ditches you. For good."

She says, "Or we all thought that way, that is."

Sera stops again and, jerking her chin up at somewhere, asks me, "D'ya think it's safe to climb up there?"

I lift my gaze, squinting from all the sunshine seeping through the lush foliage. Around six yards up in the trunk of a maple tree is a round pitch black hollow humming with a multitude of buzzing voices. 

I say, "Doesn't look too high."

She scoffs and says, "I mean the tree, not the hollow. See how dry it is?"

I inspect the maple for the second time, and now I notice the branches indeed look thin and lifeless. The foliage I mistook for the one belonging to it actually belongs to its younger neighbors, and the tree has its leaves growing only on a couple of branches.

"It means it's dead," Sera teaches me. "And dead trees are apt to break under your weight when you want them the least. And if the tree is occupied by bees, then you're not gettin' away from them."

She sighs, pats me on my back, gesturing me onward, and goes on telling me the story I don't want to hear, "So you're dispatchin' heralds, looking for your beloved one to no avail. And then, when you expect him the least, he shows up before you, shinin' with the bald head and elven glory you loved so much. Better yet, he announces he's the one you were taught to fear since you were a baby, and he, well, fucked you over. And he wants to end the world, too. But you're an incurable idiot, you love him sick, and so you believe if you spread your, uhm, arms before him, like to hug him tight, you'll keep him."

I know I heard hugs can be wonderfully helpful, but something tells me it wasn't the arms she was spreading.

One-Eyed Sera goes on, "This doesn't happen. So you're ditched again, but this time, not to leave you alone all over, he lends you some, well, baby-making material. And speaking of material," she adds in a harsher voice as she stops abruptly, "you did bring the jars as I told you, didn't you?"

I nod but draw my hand back to check my backpack. Through the sackcloth, I can feel a row of familiar cylindrical shapes. I nod again with more confidence, and we stroll on, inspecting the forest.

"Believe it or not, but you're not givin' up," says Sera. "You send a group of agents after him, and they come back, but, firstly, with no heads attached to their necks, and secondly, with a note sayin' somethin' like, I did ask you to fuck off, didn't I?"

Sera stops. Looking up time and again, she tosses her backpack on the ground, its insides clattering the way breaking things usually do. Without casting me a glance and in a more pensive tone, she says, "I was right in Skyhold when the wagon with the bodies was driven into the yard. The Inquisitor was waitin' her pregnancy out in some chateau. Hearin' news like this, it is hard enough when you're normal, but when you're expectin' and your brains are bonkers because of that, well, it must be really tough on you."

She says, "Maybe that's when she decided she won't be raisin' you."

One-Eyed Sera produces a ragtag set of equipment out of her backpack: two brown leather belts, a ladle covered in blurred spots, and a squat cast-iron lovechild of a beer pint and smithery bellows, a bee smoker she jokingly calls a "wheezing dragon." The next to come out are a tinderbox, thick bundles of mishmash herbs, and a so-called firewhirl grenade, a simple looking vial filled with transparent liquid.

"This in case we fuck up bad," says Sera and places it on the grass so carefully as if it might turn to dust in her hands. "What are you waitin' for? Put a jar into my pouch and glove yourself. You'll be the one holdin' the wheezer."

I pick up the bee smoker, poke tinder, twigs, and other junk in its charred black insides, and then light it up with the tinderbox. Meanwhile, Sera places the bundles of green herbs in a broad circle around the tree and finishes the work by striking sparks above them. She doesn't mean to start a fire or to burn the forest down for that matter; instead, she wants to raise a thick column of smoke. Coughing and waving away bitter coils of white with her hand, One-Eyed Sera tells me, "I go up first. Follow me close."

Each of us takes a belt and straps it around the trunk of the tree, its bark wrinkled with furrows. Sera starts to ascend, but instead of looking up, she glances down at me over and over. Her voice drowning in the creaking of the leather belts, she shouts, "Is your mom's position any clearer now?"

Tilting my head up, I reply, "For starters, I wouldn't have fallen for a guy like that. Let alone hugging him after he wronged me twice."

Sera makes a snortle of a laugh.

"Ooh, if you think they just fell in love with each other right off, you're so very, very wrong!"

Sera hefts herself up on the branch nearest to the hollow and instructs me to occupy the opposite one. She arms herself with the ladle and the jar. I finish my climbing, and she continues, "Oh, how he pestered her with Dalish bein' this and that! Actually, I lent him a big hand in that, and together we achieved her, your mom's, not eating, not sleepin', and, as a result, faintin' after every little skirmish. It was awkward, you know. The Herald of Andraste on one hand, and a mess lyin' in dirt and asking to leave her there on the other."

That's where she belonged, in the dirt.

On the branch, bellowing the wheezer before filling the hollow over with smoke, I ask, "What changed?"

"Lady Cassandra—have you ever saw her?—so she beckons both Solas and me and sez, like, listen you're both knife-ears right, so go and talk to her about anythin', well, knife-earry? Sez, like, do you want us to defeat the Corypheus or not? So, like, go and cheer up the woman people pilgrimage all the way up here to see then."

The bees, sensing the intruders too late, buzz out angrily out of the hollow, but the smoke the wheezer's breathing out dizzies them, and their tiny black-and-yellow balls of bodies patter down on the ground. We can hear the sound even from up here. Sera mercilessly plunges the ladle into the hollow and with a muffled scraping sound, produces a handful of cells oozing with honey.

What comes to mind are the melliferous fields of Val Foret, and my eyes start to water despite my silent orders to stop right there. Sera notices this, and for the sake of the freak I'm moved by the boohoo of a story not coming into her head, I say, "The smoke is bitter."

She glances sideways at me and says, "Sure it is."

Filling the jar with clumps of honey cells and prodding me to keep smoking, she continues, "I am simple. I deal with moodiness by hittin' the bottle or by prankin' and the like, but the father of yours went really for it. Started talkin' to Ell about how elves once were this, that, and the third, and the Void knows what else. My ears were bleedin' from hearin' all the stuff, but your mom turned all wet with them. I mean, like droolin'. And so one day I see Solas smoochin' with her in a secluded place, and then I took it that your father went a little overboard with completin' Cassandra's task, and so the need to entertain Her Majesty the Herald was no longer."

Sera covers the mouth of the jar with a rag, wraps it tightly with a band so that it wouldn't open on the way down, and then inspects it from all sides, narrowing her only eye in a critical peer. She puts her equipment back to place, sighs, and then says, "You know, your folks were nice. I mean, yeah, the baldie looked back on the past too hard, but he was, you know, compassionate. He was kind. Stood against inequality and all. And Ell offered help to anyone who needed her support. She believed everyone was worthy of being given a second chance, she fought injustice, greed, and just a general shittiness."

Just like hearing of past elven glory made Sera's ears bleed, my ears bleed from all the recounting of how good and noble and virtuous were the Inquisitor and apostate Solas.

The unnamed demon residing in my body, who chips in when it likes, says, "She isn't that wrong, you know."

_Oh please._

Aloud, I say, "And she also ditched her own daughter to an orphanage to save her reputation, and he declared war against the whole Thedas. And she also convicted her own child in a murder they didn't commit, and he floods the world with demons."

I knot the smoker to a thread hanging down from my waist, and, toughing the heat out, start my way down the trunk.

"Thanks for the story," I say to the One-Eyed Sera. "I'm done. I'll wait you on the ground."

I know I probably should be happy for my parents spending time with each other long enough to find some happiness, but their not thinking about my future rubs me really the wrong way. I can't be anything but mad when I think about how the Inquisitor didn't abort her pregnancy. How she didn't leave me before the doorway of some couple who prayed day and night for a child. How she went and told me the truth I didn't ask for. Even if she had no big plans for my long and happy future, why did she hinder my living it on my own?

I stomp the smoking herbs out, and by the time I'm finished, Sera is already climbing down. She opens a jar, produces a couple more out from my backpack, and then splits the honey cells between them into even portions. She says what attracts bees the best is honey, and so after two or three dozens gather in each of the jars, we will just shut them with dotted caps. The bees are going to spend the rest of their lives there, all two or three months of them, cooped up in the glass jars, and after that they're pretty much useless unless we feel lofty enough to throw medicine at our enemies. If we throw them while they're good however, the bees will bring a hailstorm of stings upon whoever they spot first, the distracting effect priceless. 

One-Eyed Sera doesn't tell me this, but I know they're going to die either way.

"That's gonna be a sight to see, dear Lyna," she says, chortling.

I don't know why, but I remember the stag beetle dying for the Skyhold girls to have a good laugh.

We leave the jars open, give the bees one last chance to spend some time together, and meander off into the hills, toward the most eastern creek of the Elfsblood. Sera arms herself with a bow in case we stumble across a rabbit or a meatier animal.

Still on the subject of my parents, she says, "I'm not sayin' they treated you right. What I mean is treatin' you otherwise would've been unfair to you, first and foremost. If she acknowledged you, it wouldn't have been a toughy to figure who fathered you, and you would have had it worse than for the shape of your ears alone. And who knows, maybe the baldie didn't have anyone go fetch you because he wasn't keen on bringin' you into the conflict. One way or the other, you wouldn't have had it easy. That's what I'm sayin'."

The grassy bank is patched with gray masses of rocks, some of which, at closer inspection, are adorned with stains of mold of all tints. Me and One-Eyed Sera, we sit down to take some rest on one of them, but the stone turns out to be so dry and warm with the summer sun that Sera lies down basking on it. From here, I can clearly see the sea of pines crowding the foothill and the Frostback mountains towering behind them. The roaring river before us springs from somewhere high among the snow-capped peaks, and it keeps its cold even down here in the valley.

Sometimes I wonder if that's the same river that was a roaring waterfall beneath Skyhold prison.

Sera often says that at night when the sky is clear, us elves, that from an upland we can see a faint sparkle in the mountains that would be Skyhold lights, but I thought that she, a one-eyed bandit she is, made that up because I didn't see it the whole time of plundering down in the valley.

And I didn't want to, honestly.

Looking at the clear sky above us, Sera says, "I bet Ell regrets of what she did. I bet she can't sit still in the Skyhold of hers. I bet she even plans to go find you."

You sure bet she does, don't you?

Me, I hate it. It's just like when a weeny-teeny idiot of me dreamed about being smuggled away by my bookseller parents. You would think I'm all grown-up now, living in caves among bandits, not in some orphanage full of sprats, but look at this. Once again life tries to feed me false hopes—beautiful and sentimental and still futile. But I'm no longer a five-year-old, and I've learned my lessons.

For one, a lesson on how to play a lousier pawk—or, to be precise, how to save it a coin after coin behind the back of One-Eyed Sera.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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